Pumpkin Eater: A Dan Sharp Mystery (A Dan Sharp Mystery, 2) - Softcover

Jeffrey Round's first two books were listed on AfterElton's Top 100 Gay Books. Lake on the Mountain was the first in the Dan Sharp Mystery series and won the 2013 Lambda Literary Award for best gay mystery. He is also author of the Bradford Fairfax comic mystery series, as well as a film/stage director, television producer, and songwriter. His blog, A Writer's Half-Life, has been syndicated online. Round lives in Toronto.

Jeffrey Round is the author of numerous books, including the Lambda Award–winning Dan Sharp mystery series and the stand-alone mystery Endgame. He lives in Toronto.

Round’s (Lake on the Mountain, 2012) latest Dan Sharp mystery finds the gay investigator locating a missing brother, but too late. Mutilated, Darryl Hillary hangs from a meat hook in a burnt-out slaughterhouse. The philosophic Toronto investigator, haunted by “what if” questions from the past, muses, “There is no such thing as closure. You can dehumanize things on the surface, but not deep down,” setting the mood for this compelling whodunit. Dan’s sensitive observations range from his client’s “worn face . . . so unexceptional . . . she’d disappear into the crowd” to the music of the famed rock star he’s guarding: “always a cut above,” Jags has “an innate feel for dramatic phrasing, not unlike an opera singer’s.” While some readers may find Round’s novel a bit slow as plot complexities and multiple characters appear, including one with powers of foresight who proclaims forebodingly, “It’s not over yet. . . . . You’re going to get wrapped up in it. You can feel it,” others will enjoy Pumpkin Eater’s wealth of details and measured pace. --Whitney Scott