Shadow Puppet: A Dan Sharp Mystery

In Round’s sobering sixth Dan Sharp mystery (after 2018’s The God Game), two devout Muslim brothers, Amir and Mustafa, hire the gay Toronto PI to find their missing younger brother, Nabil, a closeted homosexual. As revealed in the prologue, a fiend who thinks of himself as the puppet master has already killed one gay Muslim. Other gay men have gone missing around the time of Nabil’s disappearance, and as Dan delves deeper into the case, he becomes convinced that the kidnapper/killer “may hate gays in general, but has a vendetta against gay Muslims in particular.” The Toronto police are slow to recognize a serial pattern, and Dan is frustrated when Amir and Mustafa, who are in denial about their brother’s sexuality, obscure evidence. The tension builds as Dan and some brave friends work their way through the leather culture and the sex trade in search of the culprit. Round dramatically shows how homophobia, or at least apathy, can blind authorities to a monster victimizing a vulnerable community. [em](Feb.) [/em]