>THE BOOKS
Beach ReadingCold Serial MurderRussian River RatSnowmanWedding SeasonCalifornia DreamersLove RulesSeersucker
Beach Reading, the series, follows the adventures of Tim Snow and his friends, neighbors and boyfriends as well as his co-workers at ARTS, a fictional piano bar/ restaurant on the 500 block of Castro Street in San Francisco.
Tim's landlords around the corner on Collingwood are also the owners of Arts - Arturo and Artie - who met in Vietnam. Arturo is the restaurant's chef and Artie tends bar, although he is a frustrated performer at heart, having been a celebrated drag queen at Finocchios nightclub in its heyday.
Tim also remains close to his Aunt Ruth who took him in years ago in high school when his parents threw him out. He barely remembers his psychic grandmother, whose picture he keeps beside his bed.
Tim still has dreams that hold meanings he doesn’t understand, but he grew up hoping that his own “clairvoyance, like his first excitement around other boys at the swimming pool, was something that would just go away if he ignored it hard enough.”
Cold Serial Murder -
- also a SF Chronicle Best-Seller
Tim Snow expected to show his visiting Aunt Ruth the wonders of San Francisco, but never expected one of the sights of the city would be the body of his ex-lover. A killer is on the loose in the Castro district. Meanwhile, Tim's cadre of quirky friends and neighbors makes life all the more interesting with their drama of weddings and lost (and found) loves. Cold Serial Murder continues the story of one of the Castro's most adorable characters. Can Tim and his Aunt uncover who the killer is before it's too late?
Excerpt from Cold Serial Murder: Tim bent to put the key in the trunk and smelled… something… something was terribly wrong. The trunk came open and Tim caught his breath. Jorge was no longer missing. He was naked in the trunk of Arturo’s car amid dozens of rotting strawberries in a pool of blood.
Tim jumped back as the bile rose in his throat and he tried not to vomit. He looked around to make sure no one else was close enough to see what he did. Then he closed the trunk again. The seven muscle-bound Cher impersonators were gathering on the sidewalk to have a group picture taken in front of the restaurant for the B.A. R. There was nothing Tim could do for Jorge now and he saw no reason to disrupt Jason’s memorial gathering.
A police car double parked near the bus shelter in front of the Bank of America. There was nothing Tim could do for either Jason or Jorge besides tell the authorities, so he headed toward the corner of 18th and Castro with Arturo’s car keys still in the palm of his hand.
Russian River Rat:
- The action is divided between the Castro neighborhood and Nick’s nursery in Northern California’s gay resort district when a naked body is found in the Russian River.
- Tim and Nick’s relationship grows serious, but is strained by misunderstandings before Nick leaves for a funeral in New Orleans.
- Aunt Ruth falls for Sam Conner, a wealthy importer from Hillsborough.
- Arturo and Artie hire a new piano player, Phil, who has a more lucrative business on the side.
- Tim is briefly reunited with Nick before being injured in an attempt on Nick’s life and the nursery is nearly destroyed.
- Artie finally revives his drag persona, Artie Glamóur, to perform for a holiday party at Arts.
Excerpt from Russian River Rat:
Tim awoke to the smell of smoke from a wood-burning stove and remembered where he was… in Nick’s bed in Monte Rio. He opened his eyes to the dim light of late afternoon. The last rays of sun filtered
through the silhouettes of redwoods outside the bedroom window. Tim yawned and tried to bring his hand to his mouth, but it wouldn’t move. His gaze moved up the length of his arm and focused on his hand. Both wrists were tied to the bedposts with wide bands of leather.
Snowman:
In the fourth release in San Francisco Chronicle's best-selling author Mark Abramson's Beach Reading series of gay mysteries, all is well in the City by the Bay. Tim Snow, recently recovered from a debilitating accident, finds himself aimless and troubled over waning feelings from his boyfriend. And just when he wants to escape all the troubles in his life, new complications arise... three M's worth of trouble: mayhem (a visit from his bigoted and big-haired cousin from Texas ), men (a handsome fashion model who's sending mixed signals), and menace (body parts found in the dumpster of Art's, the restaurant where Tim works as a waiter). As if the investigations of the police aren't disruptive enough, secrets are soon revealed that affect not only Tim's family by blood but also the treasured souls of the Castro he's made an essential part of his life.
Excerpt from Snowman:
“Hi, I’m Marsha, Ruth’s neighbor,” she said to Dianne. “I guess you could say I’m the ‘T’ in ‘LGBT’ at the ‘LGBT Center’ down on Market Street.”
“I love your nails. What do you call that color? And pardon my asking, but are they real?”
“They are now. It’s Apricot Frost. My hair is real, too. I wore fake nails and wigs for a long time before mine grew out, but now I have my own nails and my hair is long enough to style it just like I want it.”
“I’m so sorry, did you have cancer?”
“Cancer! No, what I had was a lot worse than cancer, as far as I was concerned. I had a penis!”
Ruth returned to the front end of the bar in time to say, “Marsha, I see you’ve met my daughter.”
“Your daughter. You’re kidding. I didn’t know you had a daughter, Ruth. With all that big hair and make-up, I thought for sure she was a drag queen!”
Wedding Season:
- Local TV personality Rosa Rivera’s series on Bay Area weddings will end with a contest. The winners receive a lavish same-sex wedding ceremony to be broadcast live from Arts restaurant on Rosa's show. Artie thinks this will be his big chance to revive his singing career.
Excerpt from Wedding Season:
Tim ran for miles in his dreams that night. He ran around Lake Nokomis and Lake Harriet and Lake of the Isles. He ran past the Calhoun Beach Club and south along the shore of Lake Calhoun. When he looked down at his bare feet in the sand, there was no more blood. He ran west out of Minneapolis past the corn fields and farmyards of Minnesota. By the time he crossed the South Dakota Badlands his little boy’s feet had grown to the size of a teenager’s. He ran across the Rocky Mountains and soon he could smell the salt spray of the sea and hear seagulls scolding him. They might be screaming about Jesus too, but Tim didn’t listen. He was standing in the sand and the bandage was gone. He looked up toward the sun and the water and now he was a man with a man’s feet standing beside the Pacific.
California Dreamers:
- Tim is recruited along with other local psychics who are taking the HIV drug Sustiva to enter a trance-like state every Saturday morning in a clinic in China Basin. They are ostensibly trying to predict and prevent suicides from the Golden Gate Bridge, but soon find out otherwise.
- When Sam and Ruth return from their honeymoon she takes over running the Hillsborough household and discovers an eerie discrepancy in the staff schedule at Sam’s estate. For everyone close to Tim, the living and the dead become difficult to distinguish from one other.
- Artie Glamóur becomes a smash hit at Cabaret Brunch at Arts and a mysterious young man saves his life.
- Nick helps Tim and the other psychics bring down a ring of identity thieves and Tim finally has a rendezvous with his late grandmother in the middle of the Folsom Street Fair.
Love Rules:
- Nick is in Europe on a book tour with his grandmother while Tim is frustrated trying to figure out what the rules are for two guys in a committed relationship to satisfy their sexual needs. Unfortunately, he and Nick have never discussed the situation and realize that this is not the time to do it while they’re thousands of miles apart.
- Artie’s career hits new heights and takes him out of town more often, leaving other performers to entertain the crowds on Castro Street.
- A pair of masked armed robbers hit Cliff’s hardware store, Rossi’s Deli, and several of the gay bars in the Castro.
- Tim communicates via the Internet with a teenage boy from London who is coming to San Francisco with an ulterior motive.
Seersucker:
- Tim discovers his psychic grandmother's diaries.
(C) copyright 2009 Mark Abramson all rights reserved