10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
promise kept, April 10, 2006
This review is from: The Lucky Elephant Restaurant: A Detective Lane Mystery (Paperback)
The second Detective Lane mystery is even better than the first, and that's saying a lot. Several of the characters who appeared there show up here, and we get more hints that something happened to scar Lane during his childhood. The plot itself is almost an inverted mystery, since Lane very early becomes convinced a mother is responsible for the deaths of her four-year-old daughter and her ex-husband. He is now concerned with gathering proof fast in order to protect her clearly tramatized young son, but he is being hampered by an orchestrated campaign to convince the public the Calgary police are harassing the popular talk show host and religious leader. Meanwhile, Lane's lover, Arthur, has agreed to take care of his nephew while his mother undergoes treatment for cancer. As new guardian, Lane becomes a referee for ice hockey and protector of the boy, suffering physically from incipient cerebral palsy and emotionally from an abusive father. We also get many glimpses of the Vietnamese community in Calgary. All this may sound like a lot for such a short novel, but the various stories flow together beautifully as Lane and his partner, Harper, pursue the truth before anyone else can get hurt. Amid all the darkness, there is also more than a little humor.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Outstanding, timely and engaging mystery, August 1, 2007
This review is from: The Lucky Elephant Restaurant: A Detective Lane Mystery (Paperback)
With some of my favorite gay mystery writers (such as Nava, Craft, Wilson and Stevenson) having concluded their long-running series, I have been looking out for possible replacements from lesser-known authors. I ran across the "Detective Lane" series (only two books, so far) written by Garry Ryan, a high school teacher in Calgary (Canada) who wanted to depict the diverse community in which he lives.
Detective Lane (the author apparently isn't real big on last names, so most characters are identified just by their first) is well known in the Calgary Police Department, both for being an excellent detective who specializes in missing persons cases as well as being one of the few openly gay members of the force. The latter has made him a target of occasional harassment by less-enlightened fellow officers, and made him a bit of a loner, who originally worked primarily by himself, occasionally aided by his life-partner Arthur, who worked from their home. It's a nice neighborhood, despite a busybody next door neighbor with a secret of her own.
In "The Lucky Elephant Restaurant", Lane and his police partner Harper investigate a case in which a popular right-wing religious talk show host, Bobbie Reddie, has her young daughter and estranged husband found dead, an apparently murder-suicide in burned SUV. But forensic tests provide conflicting information, and further investigations lead Lane and Harper to similar fire-related deaths in Reddie's past, with intentionally destroyed evidence and animal cruelty providing additional clues. Meanwhile, Lane's cozy home for two becomes a home for four, as Arthur's sister Martha, who has cancer, and her teenage son Matt come to live with them. Ultimately, an estranged brother of Reddie provides some insight into her past, but Lane and Harper can only question him through an attorney paid for by his mysterious "Uncle" Tan.
While this is not a sequel to his first book, "Queen's Park", it does continue the development of characters introduced in the first, and, in my opinion, both books should be read in order in order to better enjoy them. While I enjoyed both very much, I agree that this is the better of the two, and give it my highest rating possible of five bold stars out of five.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Another winner, February 2, 2010
This review is from: The Lucky Elephant Restaurant: A Detective Lane Mystery (Paperback)
I have read all the current Lane mysteries, and this one, if anything, is the best of the lot. This is another of the quiet stories in m/m mysteries, as I call them, although there were times that 'quiet' seems inappropriate. His writing is so spare that it has taken three books to get the feel of Detective Lane. As with other good writers, I wish there were an unending stream of their work. This Calgary detective comes in contact with a wide variety of people and breathes a naturalness that is a joy to experience. Go Mr. Ryan!
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