Roman Ivory
Robert Bruegmann. Beautiful Dreamer, $15.95 trade paper (298p) ISBN 979-8-9895595-2-7
Historian Bruegmann (The Architecture of Harry Wees) makes his fiction debut with a fascinating and disturbing erotic mystery. The action kicks off with the death, in 1879, of British viscount Joseph Stapleton. His 19-year-old son, Robert, is expected to step into his father’s position, but the transition of power is interrupted when a review of Joseph’s assets reveals that he kept a secret house in St. John’s Wood, London. Robert goes to see the home and finds it filled with sexually explicit art objects, including an ivory phallus believed to be connected to a decades-old murder that took place in Rome. The more Robert learns of his father’s homosexual desires, the more he begins to question his own sexuality. He sets off to Paris, then Rome, to learn more about Joseph’s life as a young art student and determine whether he was connected to the murder. In the meantime, Robert meets and falls for an art dealer named Fabrizio, who introduces him to the often-violent world of underground gay sex. Bruegmann renders the period with graceful immediacy, but the mystery plot is little more than window dressing for heaps of masochistic sex, on which reader mileage may vary. Those willing to take the plunge will be rewarded. (Sept.)
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Reviewed on: 09/12/2024
Genre: Mystery/Thriller