Shortlisted for the 2016 Lambda Literary Award for Gay Mystery. Dan Sharp scours Toronto's seamy underbelly after the murder of a notorious nightspot owner, and finds his own life on the line. When Yuri Malevski, owner of notorious country-and-western bar The Saddle and Bridle, is found dead in his Parkdale mansion, missing-persons investigator Dan Sharp is reluctant to interfere in what he sees as police business. At first, Malevski's sleazy lifestyle and shady associates make the murder look like an open-and-shut case, but Dan reconsiders after being approached by a couple who say Malevski was killed by cops over protection money. When vulnerable people who had frequented the dead man's bar begin to disappear, Dan feels compelled to jump in feet first. Following a lead, his investigation takes him into the heart of Toronto's gay community, where he confronts its down-and-outs - transients, drug dealers, and con artists - and soon finds his own life threatened as his search brings him closer to a killer.
"Like all the volumes in this series, this is a solidly plotted, suspenseful mystery with appeal to anyone who enjoys PI novels."
Booklist
"[Jeffrey Round's novels] not only give gay readers increasing representation in the world of crime fiction, but offer straight ones a reasonably complex glimpse of a community they'll likely find isn't especially different from theirs - except, presumably, for the murderous parts."
