I have been looking forward to this book pairing all year. Like a fine cheese, Michael Nava gets better with age. These books, numbers 5 and 6 in the Henry Rios Mystery septology, follow each other closely in time; the sixth takes up the story almost immediately from where the fifth finishes. Henry is in his early-to-mid forties now, sober, and running his law practice out of his own home in Los Angeles. Both books were published in the mid-90s, when HIV and AIDS were still heavy players in the gay conscience.
The Death of Friends is easily the best of the six books I have read so far. It may also be the shortest at 232 pages. Nava’s style remains reliably intact, rapidly setting up the “case” that will be the focus of the story. The plot, once in motion, never drags. The details, no matter how numerous, never bog the story down. Nava knows exactly how much detail is needed to visualize the plot; he delivers this much and little more. Despite this, your brain will fling seemingly unimportant bits away. These are usually not crucial to understanding, but they enrich the story immensely upon a second reading. Alas, these are not books to “get through.” They’re meant to be enjoyed first to solve the case, and then again to immerse yourself in the hidden and subtle clues that you missed the first time through. Higher praise of a mystery book cannot be given.
The case in Death of Friends is Henry’s college friend and early love interest, Chris Chandler, who believed he could not hold a successful career and simultaneously be a happy gay man. Nava beautifully paces Henry’s recollections of his college days in step with the ultimate resolution of the case. Meanwhile, Henry takes care of Josh, his lover since book 2, who is succumbing to the final stages of AIDS. If you have been with Henry this long, you will feel his pain.
The Burning Plain cannot duplicate it’s predecessor in its density of near-perfection, but it has all the Nava style and brilliance you come to expect. Most of this story is spent outside the courtroom, with Henry defending himself after being one of the last to spend time with Alex Amerian, a prostitute. The case brings Henry face to face with the upper echelons of a Hollywood movie production studio company, where he finds that gay people can and do commit grotesque acts of self-hatred upon themselves. Henry stumbles quite a bit in order to solve this case, and is kept honest by a good cop. The bad cop, in this story, is bad enough that you a bit cheated by his final exit. Faults aside, there is much to love in this series. Get them, read them in order, and read them again. Enjoy the eloquence, enjoy the logic. Next year, I’ll wrap the series with book 7, Rag and Bone. Expect tears.