OUTBURST - A Todd Mills Mystery [Paperback]

R.D. Zimmerman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 9, 1999

Todd Mills is running out of time.

Against his instincts, Todd is lured to the Stone Arch Bridge by an anonymous phone call with promises of a hot blackmail story.  Under pressure, and in need of a scoop, Minneapolis television's most well-known (and only) openly gay reporter soon finds that his visit to the bridge does deliver a sensational exclusive, but not the one he is expecting: Todd arrives to see a man murdered, leaving him as the sole witness to the crime.

Todd's lover, city homicide investigator Steve Rawlins, immediately takes on the case.  But when a mysterious suspect emerges, the danger only intensifies, for this suspect has a secret, a past, and an identity that isn't what it appears to be.  An attempt is made on Rawlins's life in the course of his investigation, and Todd--dragged into the center of the story he's trying to cover--makes a frightening discovery.  The murder victim was a police officer, and was gay.  The killer, it seems, has developed a taste for watching gay cops die.

And unless Todd and Rawlins are able to put together the pieces of the suspect's meticulously concealed past, the consequences may prove deadly--for them both.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

In the middle of one of Minnesota's worst rainstorms, TV newsman Todd Mills--"the most visible gay person in Minneapolis"--is standing on the Stone Arch Bridge, waiting to meet a supposed blackmail victim with a hot story. Instead, he finds an about-to-be-murdered young gay cop named Mark Forrest, lured there by the same tipster/killer. So begins the investigation in this fourth Mills book from Zimmerman, one of the best of the current crop of writers of gay-themed mysteries. As in his previous Mills outings (Hostage, Closet, Tribe), Zimmerman shows us an often deadly urban world freighted with sexual tension. This time, involved in the police investigation is Todd's lover, Steve Rawlins, recently diagnosed as HIV positive--a fact that adds darkness to an already grim story. Rawlins becomes a target for the killer who has a grudge against gays and cops, the roots of which we begin to learn about gradually and with several sideways moves. Zimmerman creates a landscape perhaps a bit too dominated by variations on gay sexuality to be totally believable. But after decades of mysteries featuring nothing but straight sex, a little reverse imbalance isn't that hard to bear. --Dick Adler --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly

A confusion of sexual identities colors the latest case for gay Minneapolis TV reporter Todd Mills, last seen in Hostage (1997). While following up on a call to his office, Mills is set up as a witness to murder on a Minneapolis bridge in the middle of a tornado. When it turns out that the victim was a gay cop, both Mills and his lover, homicide detective Steve Rawlins, are involved personally and professionally. Further contacts from the killer spur Mills's investigation and suggest a link to the killing of another gay cop. Suspicions all point to a transsexual suspect whose past is darkened by a death in California. Aware that he is being manipulated, Mills uses his investigative skills and his contacts in the gay community to sort out the truth, at the same time leading Rawlins and another close friend from his college days, attorney Janice Gray, into mortal danger. Zimmerman's portrayal of the gay community is fully dimensioned, and his characters, gay and straight, are are engaging and complicated. The fast-paced plot incorporates the capricious summer weather of the upper Midwest to grand effect, both in the beginning and at the spine-tingling, satisfying conclusion.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Delta (November 9, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385319231
• ISBN-13: 978-0385319232
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.8 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,068,250 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars plodding and political, February 15, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Outburst (Todd Mills Mysteries) (Hardcover)

I am gay. I accept the fact that most of the world is not. RD Zimmerman seems to be struggling with this fact and his blindspot keeps his Todd Mills books from moving out of the special niche category. Zimmerman, how about a gay mystery where Todd and everybody else's sexuality is NOT the focal point? Despite what you seem to think, it AIN'T all about sex. To be fair OUTBURST is a solidly plotted (plodded), well-written (if predictable) mystery, and a little more action packed than its predecesors (HOSTAGE remains my favorite). But Todd's main relationship seems to be with lipstick lez Janice (kill her, PLEASE). The relationship between Todd and Steve is now all but nonexistent, and that's a drag (no pun intended). Is Zimmerman afraid a little emotion/tenderness/affection/SEX will emasculate his heros? You can't emasculate wood. Make these guys flesh and blood, please! Otherwise, don't bother.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fast paced and holds your interest, November 20, 2000

By 

Richard Harrold (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: OUTBURST - A Todd Mills Mystery (Paperback)

It isn't often an investigative reporter gets to witness a murder, but Todd Mills does in this page-turner. What I really enjoyed about this book was how Mills follows down this story, tracking the murderer, coming to very reasonable conclusions based on the information he has. Zimmerman also reveals the typical flaw of most police investigators, in that their primary goal is often making an arrest, not necessarily solving the crime.

I also liked the characterizations in this book. Each character has a distinct identity and voice that is carried through all the way to the end. The settings were authentic, but didn't bear down on you and slow the pace. And Zimmerman's ironic use of the weather as another character is really ingenius.

I also liked the fact that the sex in this book was minimal and only there when it moved the story along. Yes, Mills' relationship with his cop friend, Steve, is devoid of any stirring romance, but this isn't a soft porn novel. It's a mystery.

What I don't like about the book is Todd's and Steve's relationship lacks plausibility in one serious area. And that is a reporter, a television reporter at that, has a love relationship with a cop in which each assists the other in their respective jobs. I'm having trouble with that one. Police and journalists traditionally have a very strong Us-Them type relationships, and while this can be overcome, to be overcome to the point that a crime reporter can have a love relationship with a murder investigator really requires a leap.

Having said that, the story is good. Perhaps most readers won't think about how odd it is that an investigative journalist gets it on with a muder investigator. Perhaps they won't think about the conflicts this type of relationship automatically brings forth. Or perhaps Zimmerman will mine this field of conflict with more realism. Perhaps he already has in the previous works. But I personally feel it would work better if Todd and Steve knew each other on a friendly, rather than intimate, basis. Such conflict would be tremendous and enthralling.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best Todd Mills Yet, November 6, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Outburst (Todd Mills Mysteries) (Hardcover)

R.D. Zimmerman's latest Todd Mills mystery is his best yet. The story's plot twists are extremely clever and surprisingly believable. It's obvious that Zimmerman spends a lot of time researching his novels..his descriptions of everything from catered food to forensci science are excellent and, as far as I can tell, quite accurate. In some novels its hard to believe that a proatgonist who is not a cop can be involved in as much murder mystery fare as they are. But Zimmerman's Todd Mills manages to pull it off quite believably. I thought this one was a hoot!