5 Gay Mystery Books That Prove Gay Detectives Do It Better
- Reed
- Nov 15, 2025
- 4 min read
Look, I've read a lot of gay mysteries. Some are great. Some are... well, let's just say they tried. Here are five that actually deliver—whether you're here for puzzle-box brilliance, emotional slow burns, or watching two grief-stricken fathers commit felonies with power tools.
1. Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz
Vibe: Agatha Christie fanfiction meets snarky publishing drama—two mysteries for the price of one, and both delightfully twisty.
This book is like watching a master clockmaker disassemble and reassemble a grandfather clock while cracking jokes and hiding clues in the gears. You start reading a charming 1950s-style murder mystery starring a Poirot-wannabe detective. Then the author dies. In real life. In the book. Sort of.
What follows is editor Susan Ryeland trying to solve the real-life murder of the novel's author—a gay man named Alan Conway who was, to put it mildly, the worst. And I loved that. He's not a saint or a stereotype or a sad story. He's just a difficult man who wrote bestselling mysteries and made enemies. His queerness is matter-of-fact, his partner is a suspect (but not because he's "the gay lover"—just because he had motive like everyone else).
The structure is brilliant, the mystery within the mystery actually works, and Horowitz pulls off the ending with genuine flair. This is the kind of book that reminds you why mysteries are fun in the first place.
2. Pretty Pretty Boys by Gregory Ashe
Vibe: Small-town murder mystery meets slow-burn gay tension—with secrets, violence, and a complicated partnership simmering just beneath the surface.
I first read this on a beach in Hawaii with a cocktail in hand, and honestly? Perfect setting for a moody procedural about buried secrets and complicated feelings.
Emery Hazard is a powerlifting detective with a moral code and a lot of baggage, forced to return to his Missouri hometown after being pushed out of the St. Louis PD. His new partner? John-Henry Somerset—the golden boy who made Hazard's teenage years hell. Their first case involves a burned body, a missing activist, and every ugly thing about small-town hate. The mystery is solid, but the real draw is watching these two navigate shared history that's more wound than memory.
Ashe flips the expected roles beautifully: Hazard's the out gay man, physically imposing and controlled. Somers is prettier, more gregarious, still sorting through his own identity. The tension between them earns its slow burn, and there's a scene where they almost sleep together that's one of the most arresting in the book. If you want emotional depth with your procedural, start here.
3. Death Claims by Joseph Hansen
Vibe: Moody California noir with emotional restraint, layered secrets, and gay lives woven unapologetically into every thread.
If Fadeout was the quietly radical opening act, Death Claims sharpens the silhouette. This second Dave Brandstetter mystery (published in 1973!) feels more assured, the pacing tighter, the emotional undercurrent more compelling in its restraint.
Dave's investigating the apparent drowning of a rare book dealer whose insurance claim doesn't add up. The plot unfolds with satisfying churn—not flashy, but layered in ways that pull you deeper without losing control of tone. What's remarkable is how full of gay people this book is. Not just Dave. The plot itself centers gay lives, gay relationships, gay complications—and treats them like they're just the world. Which, in 1973, was both revolutionary and refreshingly matter-of-fact.
Dave's still mourning his partner Rod, but rather than wallowing, he mostly avoids the grief altogether—exactly as you'd expect from a hardboiled investigator keeping his edges sharp. Even now, there are contemporary authors who fumble what Hansen handled fifty years ago with grace and confidence.
4. Slippery Creatures by K.J. Charles
Vibe: Gay working-class bookseller meets disgraced aristocrat spy in 1920s London—cue espionage, sexual tension, and dialogue sharp enough to cut glass.
Post-WWI London. A gay bookshop owner. A disgraced aristocrat spy. Stolen documents, criminal gangs, and the kind of banter that makes you wish you could write dialogue this good.
Will Darling wakes up with a black eye and no sign of Camilo, the go-go dancer he went home with. When the police shrug, Will decides to investigate himself, which is how he meets Kim Secretan—charming, cultured, and the kind of man who can talk his way out of (or into) anything. What follows is pulpy 1920s intrigue done well: nightclubs, blackmail, danger, and two men circling each other with attraction laced with complications.
The mystery is fine—solid twists, good pacing. But you're really here for Will and Kim. Their dynamic is sharp, emotionally layered, and always believable. Charles lets them exist in that in-between space where attraction meets resentment and shared history feels more like scar tissue than nostalgia. It's smart, sexy, entertaining, and the kind of book you finish and immediately order book two.
5. Razorblade Tears by S.A. Cosby
Vibe: A grief-fueled Southern revenge thriller soaked in blood and regret—with shotgun blasts of emotional reckoning and unexpected tenderness.
Two men. Two dead sons. One blood-soaked redemption arc.
Ike and Buddy Lee are ex-cons, ex-fathers (in more ways than one), who failed their sons when they were alive—and now those sons are dead. Murdered. They were married to each other, and someone killed them for it. What follows is a vengeance rampage that's equal parts Quentin Tarantino and Greek tragedy, complete with shootouts, explosions, and violence so extreme it borders on cartoonish—except it's not, because Cosby threads real emotional weight through all the chaos.
What makes this book stand out is perspective. We've read stories about homophobia. We've read stories about grief. But rarely do we get the POV of the homophobic parent after the worst has already happened. These men can't fix what they broke. Their sons are dead. What they can do is try to understand them in retrospect—and avenge them with a level of brutal commitment that borders on operatic. It's blistering, brutal, and weirdly moving.
There you have it—five wildly different mysteries that all happen to feature gay characters who aren't just tragic backstory or comic relief. Whether you want clever puzzles, slow-burn romance, classic noir, witty historical adventure, or cathartic violence, there's something here worth your time.
