Police Chief Thomas Lynch investigates the disappearance of a six-year-old boy with a serious medical condition while coping with disrespect from townspeople and colleagues who don’t like the fact that he’s gay. It’s two weeks before Christmas 1997, and Chief Thomas Lynch faces a crisis when Cody Forrand, a six-year-old with a life-threatening medical condition, goes missing during a blizzard. … during a blizzard. The confusing case shines a national spotlight on the small, sleepy town of Idyll, Connecticut, where small-time crime is already on the rise and the police seem to be making mistakes left and right. Further complicating matters, Lynch, still new to town, finds himself the target of prank calls and hate speech that he worries is the work of a colleague, someone struggling to accept working with a gay chief of police.
With time ticking away, Lynch is beginning to doubt whether he’ll be able to bring Cody home safely . . . and whether Idyll could ever really be home.
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So I confess that even though this is the second book in the series, it’s the first one I read, and it absolutely works as a standalone novel. The mystery is so interesting–young boy with a rare condition (he can’t feel pain) goes missing. The protagonist, a gay police chief in a small town in the 1990s, has to not only find the boy but battle the growing harassment and hate crimes against gays in his town. I loved Chief Lynch and the story kept me guessing right up until the end. I’ll definitely be reading the others in this series.
Rare to read a mystery with an LGBT main character isn’t either a cliche, a romance or horribly written. The author has a good style and her treatment her gay character is well done.
I love the Idyll series, very original and entertaining. I love the characters, especially the gay police chief. Ms. Gayle is gutsy and informative, and creates characters that are so real they could all be our neighbors and local police. I can’t wait for the next book in the series! I am from CT so I especially like the local lore and the fake town in the realistic setting of a small CT community.
Great book with several gay characters and no graphic sex scenes. There is a series of three books by Stephanie Gayle. I hope she expands this series!!
Really like the characters. They are human and make mistakes like all of us but are likable, and the stories are very interesting.
Small town police procedural, set in 1997 with a gay chief of police, formerly an NYPD detective. I hadn’t ready the first one, and I think it would be better to read that one first for some better character groundwork. Otherwise, I’d probably have given this 5 stars for being a book I kept wanting to come back to when I had other things I should have been doing.
This second-in-series not only did not disappoint, it surpassed my expectations – which almost never happens… A couple of weeks ago I introduced you to Thomas Lynch, 1990s era Idyll, Connecticut’s now openly-gay police chief (“the first in the state!” as the locals proclaim with a mixture of pride and distaste). The first book was really good – I thoroughly enjoyed the establishment of personalities, the teasing out of backstory, and of course the murder at the heart of it all. In this second installment, Gayle has outdone herself though, and the characters really came alive for me. Lynch is a great protagonist, a strong personality fighting against prejudice (internal and external, real and projected) in a way that rings true and feels genuine. He is surrounded by a supporting cast that is a great melange of personalities, secrets, fears, dreams, quirks, and hidden depths.
Then there’s the setting, and it’s here that I think Gayle does such a great job bringing her books alive. 1998 was not long ago – at least not in my mind – but Lynch’s world is in many ways light-years away from modern sensibilities in some regards, and unfortunately all too reminiscent of them in others.
Cell phones are not ubiquitous, nor is online activity. No one has GPS. The Idyll cops still smoke in their office. Crime has a different feel – more personal, less ideological and fanatical. Neighbors not only know one another, they watch each other – and not out of a sense of pure paranoia. Hate and fear and prejudice – of race, of sexuality – feel both subtle and blatant at the same time. It’s a world that is just that much removed from our own (twenty years is not even a generation, yet the technological and world shifts since then make it seem light years apart), and I find it (even when dark, depressing, or dreadful) somewhat comforting to fall back into it because it’s the world of my early adulthood (I was 25 in 1998) and a world that formed a lot of aspects of my personality.
But characters and setting alone don’t make a book – or at least not a series book. There also has to be some action, and this time the action is disturbing because it involves a child. A very sick child. A very sick child who doesn’t feel pain. And if those words don’t send your mind to some dark places, I don’t know what will. There’s kidnapping, arson, hate crime, unexplained death, a surprising amount of flirtation, and a lot of self-discovery going on in this book, and the blend of it all is spot-on perfect. I thoroughly enjoyed watching things unfold. Some of it I saw coming, some I did not – it’s a testament to Gayle’s storytelling skills that I enjoyed both aspects equally.
I have the third book on my shelf thanks to the publisher, and it’s review will be forthcoming as soon as it’s available commercially in the U.S. (September 4), so check back in a couple of weeks to see if Gayle can continue her unabashed winning streak – I strongly suspect she shall!
My review copy was generously provided by Seventh Street Books.