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Goldenboy (1988)

by Michael Nava(Favorite Author)

3.93 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

1480401803 (ISBN13: 9781480401808)

languge

English

genre

Romance

publisher

Open Road Media

series

Henry Rios Mystery

review 1: Goldenboy is the second instalment in the Henry Rios series by Michael Nava. Several years after the events in the first book, an old friend requires Henry’s help to defend Jim Pears, a young man who is accused of having murdered one of his job mates, who threatened to reveal Jim’s homosexuality to his very conservative parents. All the evidence seems to prove that Jim did it, although he pleads innocence. What seemed to be a simple case turns into a messy one when dirty secrets begin to surface showing the ugly face of the otherwise shinny society of a buoying Hollywood…Such a great novel. In the best tradition of the noir novels, I had the same impression I had in the first one. The atmosphere, the characters, the background… It feels as if you were watching them... more through a smoked glass, trying to perceive the truth behind the characters, a truth which eludes you till the very end. Henry remains a most interesting character, with his contradictions and flaws. He feels the lure of Hollywood and falls in a trap designed to mislead him. He finds love but again it is not a perfect one: he falls for the accusation main witness, Josh Mandel. He manages to make it work somehow, although the doubts are there in the end. Will it work? I guess they are not meant to last… Goldenboy is a deceptive novel. It twists and convolutes and at the end you realize you aren’t reading what you expected. But you love it anyway. Because it is a great book, written with a mastery which obliges you to follow its lead wherever it takes you. Excellent book.
review 2: I love Henry Rios. This is the second book in the series, and one of the things I like best about it is that it goes in a completely different direction than I was anticipating. Set in the late Eighties, this incorporates some poignant QUILTBAG issues of the time. (It also incorporates some homophobic slurs--mostly from characters we are supposed to find despicable, but some from merely ignorant bystanders. I mention this only in the interest of those who may be sensitive to it.) less

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