you're not going to slow it down

-Revenge of the Hound
-Murder in the Rue Dauphine
-Sherlock Holmes and the Red Demon
-The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes
-Elementary, Mrs. Hudson

This brings my total to 29/50, and I'm currently casting about for book #30

( Reviews behind cut. )

I picked up and read the first twelve pages of Hostage by R.D. Zimmerman, but I put it down again in frustration. I am not totally ignorant of the fact that AIDS is a big problem, but all of the gay authors I read repeatedly assert that AIDS is not a gay only problem. On the other hand, every time I read a story with a gay protagonist, the plot goes like this:

There was a... AIDS AIDS AIDS AIDS AIDS AIDS AIDS AIDS AIDS AIDS AIDS.

Oh my god seriously can I just read some gay fiction that doesn't deal with this? I'm not trying to deny it's existence or importance, I just feel rather bludgeoned about the head and shoulders, when really it's just an overdone subject. The horse is dead. YOU GAVE IT AIDS AND IT DIED OKAY. Even Ben Justice has HIV. The equally ridiculously named pothead detective Chanse Macleod (OF THE CLAN MACLEOD) harps endlessly on and on, and then Todd Mills starts off with - SURPRISE - a plot about AIDS. It would be like if every story set in the Victorian era had a protagonist that contracted Tuberculosis. Or any story that ever involved a horse gave it Encephalitis. Find a new plot point, there are many to choose from. :|