Review: A five-part series that's worth reading in one go...
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 08 10, 2013
I've been reading the entire five-part Bellingham Mysteries series in one go - to try to get the feel of a big book from this excellent suite of novellas. I wanted to really spend time with the characters, not just visit them like episodes in a mini-series (which is really what this is, come to think of it).The last two of the books, "One Man's Treasure" and "Birds of a Feather," seem to take us to the end of our relationship with Peter Fontaine and Nick Olson. As in the rest of the series, there are themes to each book. "Treasure" is the vaguest of the themes, but it seems to deal with the idea of what is valuable to an individual, what drives him or her. The trash/treasure dichotomy is the energizer. In "Birds," there is literally an issue of birds, but the theme of the book is really about how people are like/unlike each other.And all that makes sense because, as I figured out pretty quickly here, none of these books is really about the plot. The mysteries are all sort of fun - and all of them involve the quirky community of artists in Bellingham, Washington, "the city of Subdued Excitement." (Snicker) What the mysteries are really there for is to create a backdrop for us to study the evolving relationship between stoic ex-army Nick; and impulsive, nosy journalist Peter.Throughout the series, we get to know a wide range of quirky secondary characters - some of them, like Peter's friend Evangeline, and Bradley, the son of Nick's late lover Walter, appear recurringly. Evangeline is a bright note of flaky support; Bradley is a dark point of anger and bitterness. These characters amplify what we know about the two men and how they grow to understand each other. I think I'd love living in Bellingham if these guys were friends.That these two men love each other is established in the first book. Why and how they love each other is the point of the rest of the series. Never in a romance series have I encountered such a leisurely, affectionate, and gently profound study of two gay men and why they actually make sense as a couple. Neil Plakcy does this in his "Mahu" series (set in Honolulu); but Kimberling has written an unusual treat for those of us for whom relationships of depth and durability really matter.