Jeffrey Round

“An extremely satisfying reading experience.” — Toronto Star In 1939, fourteen-year-old Violet and her parents arrive at the Sulphur Springs Hotel, drawn in along with other desperate guests by legends of the waters’ restorative properties. Here, curious young Violet strikes up an instant friendship with the hotelier’s worldly daughter, Julia. Together, they attempt to solve the mysteries behind the hotel’s luxury façade — including the cases of the brownie thief, the secretive hotel director, and the flirtatious gardener. But when one of Violet’s investigations leads her to commit an act of treachery, she unwittingly aids a murderous plot. Seventy years later, the killer has yet to be caught. In 2009, a widowed Violet returns to the hotel, now in ruins. Her intention is to solve this cold case. The scene of the crime reveals new clues and revives old memories, including that of her lost family and her own sexual awakening. Now, confronting her final years, Violet is desperate to make peace with her ghosts, even if she may be seventy years too late.

The white marquee outside said Adult Films Only. Cord McGreevy, on the heels of a talkathon with his shrink, needed some reassurance of his "identity crisis". In the lobby of the Lyric, he found Ellison Greer: his physical twin, if a little smaller, and darker skin. Broad forehead, a blade nose, a chin that won the west; and a natural grace, light and bouncy, an aristocrat in a shadowed skin. Yes, it described both of them except for color: Ellison was a butterscotch prince. They coupled briefly, became deep friends on other levels, conflict never far from hand. And then: murder. After Ellison is found brutally slain, the police were less than helpful. An unusual sex toy seemed the only clue. It's up to Cord to track down the killer. His search for the truth leads through the strangest underworlds New York has to offer. In the police, in his neighbors, in the people who know the truth about that brutal, perverse, modern urban murder, he comes to where the bizarre meets the beautiful - and his very own being is at stake. Richard Hall's first novel, a delicious and quirky murder mystery, is newly introduced by Jeffrey Round (Dan Sharp mysteries)."A deliciously written, softly witty and intricately plotted gay murder mystery ... A delight " - In Touch"Hall's canvas is thickly populated with interesting figures and he has a nice touch for the potential of the lurid and banal alike. This is a neat, tidy thriller of the Agatha Christie variety, with an amateur sleuth and a convoluted plot, lots of local color and the pleasant addition of good sex scenes. Richard Hall uses the whodunit to advantage ... humanized it in a way few have before." - George Whitmore, The Advocate"The Butterscotch Prince has my admiration ... a good read in one sitting." - Michael Lynch, The Body Politic"Hall writes ... in a measured, often moving voice that explores the difficulties of grief and commitment." - Kirkus Reviews"The elegance and refinement of Hall's prose have once again marked him as one of our most distinguished writers." - Gay Pride

His first novel, The Butterscotch Prince, was hailed in 1975 as a triumph: an explicitly gay murder mystery story with erotic elements released during the heady days of Gay Liberation. Richard Hall's career, as a writer of short and long fiction, in theatre and as a widely acclaimed book critic, flourished. Seventeen years later, Hall worked feverishly, and lovingly, to complete his second gay mystery novel, The Spinner of Tales, now released for the first time and marking 30 years since his death. Dr. Bruce Pittman runs a successful music school in New York, nurturing young talent for the concert stage. David Donnenfield has been in his orbit for nearly a decade; he arrived as a fresh-faced, somewhat tentative, 19-year-old with talent, ambition but sorely lacking polish. Now he was touring regularly to great acclaim ... until he's been charged with the bludgeoned murder of Miles Halloran, longtime friend of Bruce, and a great raconteur and world traveler. But as Bruce tries to fit the pieces together, David resists, and darker elements of Miles' life come to the surface. Worse, his battle with AIDS-related "opportunistic infections" is taking a deep toll, sapping his energy and placing him in and out of hospital. There is much more to Miles' own back story which leads to a dangerous trip to Miles' second home in Puerto Rico, threads through the world of New York publishing, and hints at drug trade and money laundering. Is anyone who they seem to be? And when, inadvertently, Bruce hands NYPD Detective Kerrison a crucial bit of evidence, David may be lost. Jeffrey Round (Dan Sharp mysteries) provides an introduction. A ReQueered Tales Original Publication."Richard Hall's prose displays a rare polish, and his accounts of ordinary and exceptional lives unfold in grateful cadences." - Los Angeles Times"The elegance and refinement of Hall's prose have once again marked him as one of our most distinguished writers." - Gay Pride

Confessional lyric poetry by Jeffrey Round, an award-winning LGBTQ+ author. The collection reveals love as a tapestry of erotic ecstasy, heartbreak, rueful burning, tender secret, and sometimes cold emptiness. Focusing on lovers, close friends, and his own father, Round also explores teen and adult suicide, gay bashing, and hustlers of lost dreams.

A case brings PI Dan Sharp to the northern Ontario wilderness, where he has to face his own dark past. When a four-year-old autistic boy disappears on a camping trip, his mother is reluctant to involve the police. Instead, she calls in private investigator Dan Sharp after a ransom demand arrives. On investigating, Dan learns there are plenty of people who might be responsible for the kidnapping. Among them are an ex-husband who wrongly believed the boy was his son; the boy’s surrogate mother, now a drug addict; the boy’s grandmother, who has been denied access to her grandson; and a mysterious woman who unnerves everyone with her unexpected appearances. A trip to Lion’s Head in the Bruce Peninsula, where the boy disappeared, brings Dan unexpectedly into contact with his own brutal upbringing. But when a suspected kidnapper is found dead, Dan suddenly finds himself chasing the ghosts of the present as well as the past.

2013 Lambda Literary Award for Gay Mystery — Winner When missing persons investigator Dan Sharp attends a wedding, he finds himself investigating more than one murder. Dan Sharp, a gay father and missing persons investigator, accepts an invitation to a wedding on a yacht in Ontario’s Prince Edward County. It seems just the thing to bring Dan closer to his noncommittal partner, Bill, a respected medical professional with a penchant for sleazy after-hours clubs, cheap drugs, and rough sex. But the event doesn’t go exactly as planned. When a member of the wedding party is swept overboard, a case of mistaken identity leads to confusion as the wrong person is reported missing. The hunt for a possible killer leads Dan deeper into the troubled waters and private lives of a family of rich WASPs and their secret world of privilege. No sooner is that case resolved when a second one ends up on Dan’s desk. Dan is hired by an anonymous source to investigate the disappearance, twenty years earlier, of the groom’s father. The only clues are a missing bicycle and six horses mysteriously poisoned.

Private investigator Dan Sharp searches the seamy underbelly of the city for a brutal killer. Following an anonymous tip, missing persons investigator Dan Sharp makes a grisly find in a burned-out slaughterhouse in Toronto’s west end. Someone is targeting known sex offenders whose names and identities were released on the Internet. When an iconic rock star contacts Dan to keep from becoming the next victim, things take a curious turn. Dan’s search for a killer takes him underground in Toronto’s broken social scene — a secret world of misfits and guerrilla activists living off the grid — where he hopes to find the key to the murders.

Private investigator Dan Sharp investigates the disappearance of three closeted gay men. When a serial killer stalks downtown Toronto, private investigator Dan Sharp finds an unexpected link between the missing men that even the police are reluctant to investigate. A meeting with the chief of police confirms his suspicions, but does nothing to resolve the problem. Obsessed with uncovering the truth, Dan enlists a small group of friends to delve into illicit goings-on in the local sex industry. It’s only when the next man disappears, however, that Dan finds himself in a race against time to track down an elusive, manipulative killer who is a master of disguise.

2019 Lambda Literary Award for Gay Mystery — FinalistPrivate investigator Dan Sharp finds himself caught up in a political murder. When the husband of a Queen’s Park aide runs off to escape his gambling debts, private investigator Dan Sharp is hired to track him down. As the city’s political landscape verges on the bizarre — with a crack-using mayor and a major scandal looming — Dan finds himself pitted against a mysterious figure known for making or breaking the reputations of upcoming politicians. It’s not until a body turns up on his doorstep that Dan realizes he’s being punished for sticking his nose into dirty politics. It’s left to him to catch the killer and prove his own innocence.

Bon Ton RouletLet the good times roll Or Laissez les bon ton roulet, as they say in inimitable Cajun fashion. But for post-Katrina New Orleans, the good times are hard to come by of late. The fourth adventure in the Bradford Fairfax series finds Brad in the original good-time town where many former residents have vanished forever. To make matters worse, the town is overrun by a band of punks terrorizing the waterfront in their fearsome nightly sprees. There's more misery here than in a Delta Blues songbook When a troubled city worker ends up dead, it looks like an eccentric resort attendant named Quint may be behind it. But it's not just the living who are suspect. Brad follows a tip to the local cemetery where the legendary Marie Laveau is said to rule over the dead. At the same time, a creepy prognosticator named Doctor Doom has more to say about the city's troubles than most folks want to hear. As if that weren't enough, Bradford's blue-haired amour, Zach, disappears, leaving Brad to search the city for him. The town that gave birth to jazz and a genuine Voodoo queen seems to be having re-birth pangs of a very different sort. As Bradford Fairfax learns, all is not well where the bon ton roulet.

2016 Lambda Literary Award for Gay Mystery — ShortlistedDan 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.

A modern retelling of the classic Agatha Christie tale of suspense and murder, And Then There Were None. When Harvey Keill, ex-manager of the Ladykillers, arranges a reunion for his notorious punk band on a remote island off the coast of Seattle, it seems as though the group’s glory days are about to return. One by one, the band members and their guests arrive. Lead singer Spike Anthrax, bassist Pete Doghouse, and guitarist Max Hardcore confront one another for the first time since their well-publicized and highly acrimonious split fifteen years earlier stopped them from finishing their musical testament to punk rock genius: Endgame. They are joined by an entourage of groupies, girlfriends, one of America’s best rock critics, and a real estate agent invited to put the island up for sale. But where’s Harvey? No matter — a party’s a party, right? Wrong. Once everyone has gathered, a dark secret emerges from the past to haunt them and, one by one, the guests begin to fall prey to a mysterious fate.

A seemingly casual encounter in a downtown bar sends missing persons investigator Dan Sharp in search of a woman presumed dead in the Tiananmen Square Massacre. Twenty years after her disappearance, her brother believes that a woman he glimpsed on the Internet is his sister, now living in Toronto. The closer Dan gets to finding her, however, the less sense things make. Just when he thinks he knows what’s driving his client, an unexpected revelation forces him to choose between what he’s been told and his gut instinct, which says things are not all they seem.

On assignment in the famed Mexican resort town, gay caballero Bradford Fairfax discovers he has far more to worry about than sand fleas and la turista. When a sultry diva sends out a distress signal, Brad answers the call. But why won't his boss, the shadowy Grace, tell him why he's really in PV? When a fellow agent gets blown away passing on top-secret information, Brad has no idea where to turn. Suddenly everyone seems unusually suspicious. Or suspiciously unusual. And what's a boy to do when his former partner in espionage-a.k.a. Little Wing-returns from the dead looking sexier than any corpse should be allowed to look? Will Brad let the past disrupt his relationship with the erstwhile and eternally sexy, blue-haired Zachary Tyler or will he beat a hasty retreat and nurse his broken heart under a coconut palm, saying Adi s muchacho to an old flame once again?

2013 Lambda Literary Award for Gay Mystery - WinnerWhen missing persons investigator Dan Sharp attends a wedding, he finds himself investigating more than one murder. Dan Sharp, a gay father and missing persons investigator, accepts an invitation to a wedding on a yacht in Ontario's Prince Edward County. It seems just the thing to bring Dan closer to his noncommittal partner, Bill, a respected medical professional with a penchant for sleazy after-hours clubs, cheap drugs, and rough sex. But the event doesn't go exactly as planned. When a member of the wedding party is swept overboard, a case of mistaken identity leads to confusion as the wrong person is reported missing. The hunt for a possible killer leads Dan deeper into the troubled waters and private lives of a family of rich WASPs and their secret world of privilege. No sooner is that case resolved when a second one ends up on Dan's desk. Dan is hired by an anonymous source to investigate the disappearance, twenty years earlier, of the groom's father. The only clues are a missing bicycle and six horses mysteriously poisoned.