Customer Reviews

The Secret Tunnel

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

You can't help but feel that Agatha Christie would love to be seated next to James Lear on a long train trip, through scenic mountains and dark tunnels, with hours to observe and gossip and draw conclusions together. As a huge Agatha Christie fan, I loved how James tips his hat to Christie's MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS, before jamming it full of horny men, bawdy sex and a devil may care attitude--and with a mystery thrown in to boot! James writes so swiftly, so wittily, I can't help but grin with pleasure!

This, like all of Lear's books I've read, is a fun, entertaining read. Easy to read in a day or two. Just sheer enjoyment.

Trains, mystery, romance. Of course the crazy title about the secret tunnel turns out to be...well it's more than a manly passage. I guess there was a sale on summer type reading and I bought and read three like so much buttered popcorn. Fun stuff, though

James Lear's writing is very masculine as his homosexual characters are not all stereotypical queens or femmes. His men are very much men -lacking all delicacy and genteel innocence found in many gaymale characters of other works of gay erotic fiction. The Secret Tunnel is James Lear's 5th novel and sequal to "The Back Passage". In this brilliant, exiciting and sexually stimulating rollercoaster ride murder mystery we are reintroduced to Edward "Mitch" Mitchell, an American living in the United Kingdom as a Doctor in training. On his way to visit is best friend and once lover "Boy" Morgan, Dr Mitchell is caught between a cock and a hard case. Not a detective but always wanted to be, Mitchell is on the trail of a murderer. Along this path of investigation he runs into a hungry bottom Belgian, a randy Scottish sergeant and his kilt wearing soliders, sexual psychopaths and secret lovers both on stage and in the royal family and a sex club. Mitchell will do anything to get at (and into) the bottom of his investigation, even if it means performing in a gay porn flim. This book is not only erotic and titilating, it is well written, suspencful and facinating from cover to cover (especially the guy on the cover). Lear does not candy coat his prose with purple metaphors and similes -he tells it right out. You know what his character's want in detail no euphemisms. From sexual postions to bathroom behavior,orgies to anal morris code, Lear is creative, honest, bold and very male in his layout. What I admire most about Lear's work is that it is unapologetic and it does not try to explain why these men are so aroused by other men. It is what it is, take it or leave it.

James Lear is fast becoming my favorite gay erotic author. His stories are well written - with loads of hot sex. Thank you Mr. Lear for making my evening reading time - oh so enjoyable.

I enjoy the Mitch Mitchell series. I will not bother with a blow-by-blow narrative, though (pun intended). Suffice it to say that this lives up to the series as hypersexed Mitch conquers men and solves the mystery at hand. I love the train setting and the richly drawn characters. I especially enjoyed the reprise of my favorite constable. The writing is vivid, the story interesting, and the sex hot. It makes for a fast, fun read.

I was disappointed with The Secret Tunnel, and I couldn't finish it which surprised me, because I really enjoyed The Back Passage and Hot Valley. It's been some time since I read the author's other two books, but I remember them as fun, clever, and difficult to put down. I kept falling asleep through this one. I really enjoy male/male romance books and their hot sex, but I was turned off by all the quick sex in the bathroom. I recommend The Back Passage and Hot Valley by Lear, but not this book.

Sequel to "The Back Passge" (which I never read). This takes place in (I believe) the early 1920s. Handsome, muscular "Mitch" Mitchell is traveling from Scotland to London to see an ex--"Boy" Morgan. Aboard the train he's on a murder occurs and there's plenty of suspects. Among them: hot Belgian power bottom Bertrand; dizzy starlet Daisy Athensay; her publicist Peter Dickinson; hot bisexual matinee idol Hugo Taylor and many others.

Very quick read chock full of explicit sex and twisted relationships. The characters are interesting, the mystery intriguing and the sex...it's almost nonstop. That was one of my problems--I have nothing against explicit gay sex and it IS necessary to the plot but it sometimes gets tiresome. There's way too much at times. I also didn't like the orgy at the end where things go from sexy to downright sick and cruel. Also the mystery was a little TOO convoluted at the end. I had to reread the explanation at the end to get it clear. Still this is a quick sexy mystery. Recommended with reservations.

Warning: This review might contain what some people consider SPOILERS.

Rating: 7/10

PROS:
- As twisty-turny a plot as its predecessor. Seriously--Lear is closer to being a contemporary Agatha Christie (with a few alterations here and there, granted) than any other author I've encountered. The plot points pile one on top of another on top of another (ad nauseum, it seems on occasion), and there are so many characters as to make one dizzy at times.
- Even more wicked a sense of humor than its predecessor. This is only the second of Lear's works I've read, the first having been The Back Passage, but his writing contains wit and cleverness in abundance. And he recognizes (and strives for, I imagine) the parallels between his stories and the English detective stories from the first half of the twentieth century, even going so far as to poke fun at his own adherence to the mystery formula: "Oh, I love this bit," one character says just before the narrator launches into his tell-all at the book's conclusion. "When the detective has got everyone into the same room, and suddenly everything becomes clear."
- Plentiful sex of various shades and colors. I didn't find it `hot' per se, because very little of it is emotional...at all...but if you're looking for raunchy sex and a character who's as randy as a jackrabbit, they're both in full supply here.

CONS:
- The plot is almost too convoluted. I must confess I found my mind wandering off during the big tell-all scene because there were just so many characters and so much that had to be accounted for that I stopped caring after several pages about exactly which person contributed exactly which action to the muddle.
- Every male character in the book is gay. (Okay, okay, some of them are bi.) And no, I'm not exaggerating. When seen as part of a larger, humorous work, the abundance of guys wanting to get it on with other guys is funny, naturally. But there was a point about halfway through the book when I got a little exasperated (though to be honest, that went away and my amusement returned later on), if only because Lear really is a masterful storyteller and I thought for just a moment, "You're using this as a crutch when you're good enough not to need it."
- The same bothersome little romance...thing...that comes up at the end of The Back Passage returns here, and I don't see the point of it. Mitch has a faithful (or so we're led to believe) lover at home and isn't away from him for more than a couple of hours before he cheats on him, and before the trip is all said and done, he's had sex with 8 or 10 different men, most of them multiple times. This isn't a romance; okay, I get it. But why tell us about the hapless, ill-treated lover at all?

Overall comments: If you're looking for a book with a plot that will keep you guessing, particularly if you enjoy tongue-in-cheek humor, this is an excellent read. It's not realistic, nor does it portray even the ghost of a real human connection on any level other than the physical. Erotica, yes. Romance, no.

I was rather shocked by this book, I who have seen it all, done it all. I knew in advance that it is a gay homage to (or parody of) Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express. So I was expecting some kind of Firbankian froth, playfully tweaking the Christie genre. I was not expecting the hard-core XXX-rated gay porn. It is often more graphic than necessary. All of the men involved in the mystery are young, handsome, gay, and more than willing to engage in instant sex at the drop of a...well, a pair of trousers.

And I must admit that the long explanation of whodunnit...the Big Reveal, as it were...is so complicated that I lost interest. Yes, some of the dialogue is witty, but it alternates with the lurid XXX-rated gay porn, and that just turned me off completely.