Customer Reviews

Straight Lies

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This novel is less "romance" than expected and probably funnier. First of all the two main characters, from the blurb and even from the cover I was expecting for them to be two young guys with big hopes and few means, and instead they are two partners in crime in a work and love relationship older than 15 years. So between them everything is easy, they know each other and their mutual faults. There is not much romance, meaning that there are not much love scenes (and never once we arrive to a sex scene) but between Chase and Grant there is for sure a love relationship. Here and there you can also have an hint that it was not always simple, that maybe sometime they had to overcome some obstacles in their path, but more or less they were successful in doing that, and I have never had the feeling that their relationship was in trouble.

Problem is that at more or less 40 years old, they are too old to continue to live on expedients, they maybe want to retire or arriving at least near that. And so when Jamie comes to them with a not so legal proposition, Grant sees the chance to hit the big one. Jamie filmed a famous gay actor and activist, Romeo Romero, having sex... with a woman. The tape is worth a lot, the problem is that Jamie lost it! In a cab! From that moment on Grant starts to plan a way to have it back and more he goes on, more people are involved and more I was trying to understand if, once everyone was paid back, something for Chase and Grant's retirement plan was still available.

As I said, the novel is more a comedy than a romance, and even if it deals with thieves and blackmails, for sure it's not a mystery or an adventure plot... probably the only mystery is how our heroes manage to not end up in a jail, since they didn't give me the idea to be real criminals. Chase and Grant are more or less good boys who are trying to survive, and even their crimes usually are petty crimes, that more or less don't give much trouble neither to their victims: some money here, a stolen car there, nothing of irreplaceable or real life-important.

Other than Chase and Grant, there are other supporting characters that I think in a way stole the scene to them. Lisa, the lesbian real estate agent with a lip-stick girlfriend, Paul the driver, even Will the unwilling blackmailer, or Henry the 41 years old policeman with a crush for the 16 years old "Amber", no one of them is really "honest", but no one of them is really a criminal. But who for me shine among them all is Jared, the twinkiest of the twinks: with is out of body-lose in dreams moments and his philosophy of life (every man with money is hot), he is for sure the most funniest and original of all the characters and I really wouldn't mind to read his own personal story, where of course he would be able to find his hot sugar daddy, with a lot of money and, why not?, who is also an hot guy for real. Who instead had great potential, but among all these characters remained a bit in the shadow was Jamie: again, I think he's good material for something more.

Can an openly gay man be outed? Well, he can if he is only pretending to be gay in order to keep the remnants of his acting career alive while actually he has a soft spot for girls with big bosoms. When Romeo Romero is caught on tape with such a girl by one of his guests, and Grant Lambert and Chase La Marca hear about the fact and the existence of the tape (the whereabouts thereof are currently uknown) the adventure begins.
Grant and Chase are partners in more ways than one - they live together and break the law together. Their specialty are gentlemen with a taste for very young girls. They find their victims on the Internet and before the gentlemen know what is going on, they lose their cars and credit cards. Grant and Chase are small-time crooks who hope for a big break and blackmailing Romeo Romero seems to be a chance for such a break. But the cookie turns out to be a tough one so they will have to work very hard and ask all their friends to help to get to Romero's money.
Byrnes succeeds once again - the novel has a good pace, the characters are well drawn, the story is (almost) probable. This is not another candidate for the Pulitzer prize but a very good candidate for your beach/pool reading during summer holidays. It took my copy to Cyprus and I did not regret it.

Rob Byrnes has done it again. "Straight Lies" is a hilarious adventure introducing us to con-men Chas and Grant and well as re-introducing a few previous characters we have met in Byrnes other books!

Great laughs and hilarity ensues when Chas and Grant plan the biggest caper of their "careers."

A great read! I look forward to more adventures of this mad-cap gang!

Partners in crime--and life--Grant and Chase survive in get-rick-quick schemes in which they manage to get money off unsuspecting people by any means possible. They want to pull off a big job that could let them retire in style. They realize there's a tape showing openly gay actor Romeo Romero having sex--with a woman! They decide to steal the tape and blackmail the star. However the tape is left in a New York City cab and things go out of control. Throw in a sleazy tabloid editor, two lesbians, an Internet stalker, an alcoholic ex-cop and a twinky and you have a very confusing and funny comedy.

I do have one big problem about this book. I love it but there are way too many characters to follow. I eventually got them straight (if you'll pardon the expression) but it was annoying. Still this moves quickly, has great characters and very funny (if totally improbable) situations. One-liners fly fast and furious and I hated having to put it down. Fast and funny--well worth reading.

'Straight Lies' is a refreshingly fun and mad-cap adventure that brings to mind Ocean's 11 and Janet Evanovich, only with a pair of morally flexible gay protagonists named Chase and Grant, a lesbian real-estate agent and her girlfriend, an alcoholic driver, and the funniest boy-toys I've had the pleasure of reading since, well, 'Trust Fund Boys.'

It all begins when our two con-men protagonists realize that there's a tape out there with the famous gay star Romeo Romero gettin' it on in his hot-tub... with a woman. Since the man's career was built on his brave "coming out" this offers a blackmail situation, and Chase and Grant aren't going to turn it down.

Which is when the tape goes missing, a sleazy tabloid writer, an ex-cop, and even Tori Spelling get throw into the mix. The plans - and new plans - and improvisations when the plans don't work - fly fast and furious, and the real joy is in the collision of these clever characters as they try to make something stick long enough to walk with the payoff.

Byrnes is even nice enough to drop some gentle cameos in there for fans of his earlier books to chortle over.

By now, you'd think I would have learned that when cracking a Rob Byrnes novel, I should make sure to seclude myself somewhere first, so that when - inevitably - I let loose with barking laughs, I'm not making other people nervous. I didn't learn, and to the passengers of the #95 bus, the people in the food court last Tuesday, and my husband (who was trying to sleep), I apologize. But you really should go buy a copy.

Well, maybe not my husband. He can borrow mine.

This book is like a mystery starring the Marx Brothers. It's just a straight-up fun caper, with great characters, lots of unexpected twists and turns, and extremely witty dialogue. I can't wait to read the next one.

Chase and Grant are a gay couple who both live and work together ... but their "business" is a bit unique. They're small-time crooks, always on the alert for any scam or con that can provide a payoff with minimal risk and effort. When possible, they prefer to cheat people (usually straight) who set themselves up for it by their own deceit or illegal activities, such as pedophiles expecting to meet teenage girls for sex.

The guys decide to blackmail Romeo Romero, a famous actor who used a public revelation that he is gay in order to further his career and get support from gay fans. The problem is that Romero was apparently just making that claim for professional reasons, and a video taken of him establishes that he is clearly heterosexual. A plan to get that tape goes awry, and it becomes the property of the editor of a well-known gossip tabloid, so Chase goes undercover to work for him, and see if he can snatch it. Ultimately, they come up with an alternate plan to infiltrate a gay fundraiser at the actor's Hamptons estate, tempt him with a woman as well as a tempting twink, and get photographic proof, once and for all, what "team" Romero plays with. In order to do that, Chase and Grant call on some of their friends who don't mind bending the rules a bit (a whole lot, actually!) What can go wrong, pretty much does go wrong, in this hilarious, madcap caper involving a diverse cast of colorful but strong-minded gays and lesbians, making up new rules as they go along, hoping for the ultimate payoff. The payoff is great for the reader of this fun book, and I give it five sun-splashed stars out of five.

Nice character developement. A good read. Gets quite bogged down toward the end however I still completed this. My first time ordering a book online and, although it aint no Annie Proulx, I'll probably randomly order another book in the same fashion in the future.