Steamy Saturday

An obviously gay but crafty detective, Francis Morely; suggestive banter between Morely and his straight, ex-football player sidekick, Tiger Olsen; a camera behind a two-way mirror in a notorious bathhouse run by the sinister Joe Cannelli; blackmail and murder of privileged high society members; and the blond, sultry "nymphomaniac on the make," Vivien Holden -- this pulp novel, The Gay Detective, published in 1961 by Saber Books in Fresno, California, is all kinds of steamy!

The suggestive cover art bears the caption, “Francis and Tiger found out what they needed to know. The Trick now was to get the nude Vivien out of the bathhouse and to safety.” The excerpt on the flyleaf has Francis "mincing a bit towards his new car . . . 'Oh, I can see that you're going to be a big help to me. . . . So, there you great hulk. Now get moving.' Glancing around to be sure they were unobserved, Tiger put a hand on his hip and flipped his other wrist. 'And whoops to you, too,' he said with his boyish grin." And the quote on the back cover makes a reverse implication of St. Paul's statement, "there is nothing unclean of itself; but to him that esteemeth any thing to be unclean, to him it is unclean.”

Quite tame by today's standards, The Gay Detective, considered the first published gay American murder mystery novel, was written by Lou Rand, a pseudonym for Lou Hogan (born Louis Randall, 1910-1976), a professional chef, columnist for Gourmet magazine, and author of The Gay Cookbook (1965). Saber Books was one of several imprints owned by Fresno author and publisher Sanford Aday, a notorious purveyor of steamy pulp fiction, who was eventually tried and convicted of distributing obscene material.

View other pulp fiction posts.

While everyone goes nuts over Benoit Blanc (haven't seen those movies yet... the general concensus seems to be that it's worth watching?), can we please remember to appreciate the OG™ gay detective Donald Strachey. Always a soft spot in my heart. ❤

Gotta Catch 'em All: A Knives Out Mystery

glass onion had lgbt rep in the way that i prefer: a character is shown to be gay in a subtle yet unmistakeably domestic way, and then nothing romantic happens and we go solve a murder with the power of friendship and violence

How Neil Gaiman killed me...

Literally him

im so glad almost all detective media seems to recognise the very important fact that being a detective is inherently homosexual

Benoit Blanc & Sherlock Holmes both prove that the best detectives aren’t actual trained detectives but nosy gay men who drink their respect women juice and hate the rich.

me watching glass onion

Thank the lord that Benoit Blanc is a detective with compassion and kindness and cares while also being a genius detective because the two don’t need to be exclusive

DEAD BOY DETECTIVES S1 + TUMBLR REACTIONS

actually can we acknowledge “if you punish yourself, everywhere becomes hell” because GOD DAMN EDWIN that is. a very good line.

looks like Edwin kissed all the supernatural animals in town. not so bad for a dead virgin boy XD

NAUR they had to have this talk in hell, yea

"yes boss it's crucial for the plot, it has to be a super hell"

The Cat king? More like the Cunt king.