The Secret Tunnel

Title: The Secret Tunnel
Author: James Lear
Published: 2008 by Cleis Press
Genre: Murder, mystery and mansex.
Pages: 298


Sequel to the first book I ever wrote about on this blog, The Back Passage! (the last of the Mitch Mitchell Mysteries is called A Sticky End. Hee hee) Mitch is on his way from Edinburgh to London on the Flying Scotsman, a non-stop train service, in this humorous murder mystery in the spirit of Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express. In London awaits his old flame, Harry 'Boy' Morgan, whose daughter's godfather Mitch is to be. But it's a loooooong way from Edinburgh to London, with many, many buggerable arses on the way. The train is loaded with diamond merchants, movie stars, old dowagers and their companions, and of course a stowaway and a nasty murder. And men in kilts.

I really like how the stowaway-come-Watson to Mitchell's Sherlock is described on the back of the book as 'Belgian power bottom Bertrand'. And it greatly amuses me that one of the characters is named Peter Dickinson. I see what you did there, Mr. Lear. Oh, and I have to quote this bit on the back as well: "This isn't porn accompanied by a wah-wah guitar, this is porn to the strains of Beethoven's Ode to Joy, each vividly realised ejaculation accompanied by a fanfare and the crashing of cymbals." (-TIME OUT)

Like the first one, this was pretty darn sexy, fun, and real hard to put down. I just want you to know that I'm trying really hard not to make a dick-joke out of that. I read most of it in two sittings, mostly at home, because a) it was that hard to put down, and b) ...I really didn't want to explain to most work colleagues at lunch why I'm reading a book with a naked man on the cover. Who looks very much like Robert Downey Jr. to me. Heh. My only problem with this book was the few typos that had slipped in, most of them just typos, but once there was a misplaced name, too. I know I'm nitpicking, but typos can really turn me off. (I've angsted long into the night over typos I've made myself...) I bought the third, and last? of the Mitch Mitchell mysteries as well, but I think I'm gonna keep that on the shelf for now, save it for a rainy day. Because, man, these books will pick you up like Prozac.


The waiter brought our lunch, and we were obliged to change the subject.
"So today, my friend, we must give you some time to recover before, no doubt, you spend another night with your legs in the air in the Regal Hotel."
"Not always. He likes me to sit on it and slide down-"
"And we must pay some visits. Let us try, Bertrand, to keep our minds off sex, at least for the next few hours."


*snerk* Yeah, good luck with that!