cover image The Night G.A.A. Died

The Night G.A.A. Died

Jack Ricardo. St. Martin's Press, $17.95 (197pp) ISBN 978-0-312-07752-5

Drawing on fact and fiction, Ricardo details gay society in early 1970s Manhattan in this well-crafted hardcover debut, which introduces fledgling PI Archie Cain, a former NYPD cop. Cain meets Max Harmony, vice-president of the Gay Activists' Alliance and an editor at a social policy magazine, in ``the trucks''--18-wheel sex dens on the loading docks west of Greenwich Village. The pair stroll to an abandoned Hudson River pier, where Harmony is stabbed to death while in Cain's arms. Although the police arrest the victim's live-in lover, Cain decides to investigate on his own, tracing one lead to the organization behind a local flea market. After ferreting out CIA and FBI interest in Harmony, Cain is advised by his former NYPD boss to drop the case. While avoiding graphic sex scenes, Ricardo vividly illuminates the culture and mores of the book's milieu. Some elements of the quickly paced plot may be far-fetched, but the era and the issues--early gay-rights activism and the Cold War--are credibly depicted. (June)