Fabulous in Tights

A gay superhero faces a new threat in this fun but predictable romp from Bodner (Bite Club). Alec Archer, aka the Whirlwind, oversees a thriving escort and sex work agency by day. His adoring husband, Peter, knows nothing about his superheroic alter-ego or indestructible body. When an explosion rocks a lab at Peter’s work, Alec leaps into action, unaware the attack is a diversion by supervillain Thanatos to hide the abduction of scientist Bradley Harmon. Thanatos demands Bradley synthesize a disease that will infect crops and force people to only eat specially modified plants or die of starvation. Meanwhile, Thanatos’s oddly specific ransom of $27 million sends Alec, together with his best friend and Centerport police chief, Gretchen Thatcher, and his father figure and gadget guru, Travis Buttrick, scrambling to figure out who Thanatos is. Bodner writes some thrilling fight scenes and the erotic tension between Thanatos and Whirlwind is a nice spin on a familiar dynamic, but the novel’s humor often falls flat, as in jokes at the expense of Alec’s effeminate secretary and an overweight rescue victim, and readers will likely guess Thanatos’s identity long before the final reveal. The result is diverting but largely forgettable. (Mar.)