Archive - October 21, 2011

[Review of new mystery by Dick Lipez (writing as Richard Stevenson)(Ethiopia 1962-64), the novel Red White Black and Blue by  Gerald Bartell in The Washington Post published on  October 18, 2011.] Bruises afflict nearly everyone and everything in Richard Stevenson’s 12th Donald Strachey mystery,  Red White Black and Blue.  Hired thugs pummel Strachey, a gay Albany PI, as he tries to get the dirt on Kenyon Louderbush, a candidate for governor of New York running in the Democratic primary. Louderbush, a married, closeted gay man, beat up a boyfriend who later committed suicide. The boyfriend, it turns out, had been physically abused by his stepfather. And the political system the PI butts up against in this entertaining mystery is so battered that it’s down for the count. At the outset, Strachey’s assignment seems simple. But as often happens in satisfying mysteries such as this one, the case becomes delectably complex. The . . .