Gregory Ashe

Transposition

After Emery Hazard loses his job as a detective in Saint Louis, he heads back to his hometown--and to the local police force there. Home, though, brings no happy memories, and the ghosts of old pain are very much alive in Wahredua. Hazard's new partner, John-Henry Somerset, had been one of the worst tormentors, and Hazard still wonders what Somerset's role was in the death of Jeff Langham, Hazard's first boyfriend.When a severely burned body is discovered, Hazard finds himself drawn deeper into the case than he expects. Determining the identity of the dead man proves impossible, and solving the murder grows more and more unlikely. But as the city's only gay police officer, Hazard is placed at the center of a growing battle between powerful political forces. To his surprise, Hazards finds an unlikely ally in his partner, the former bully. And as they spend more time together, something starts to happen between them, something that Hazard can't--and doesn't want--to explain.The discovery of a second mutilated corpse, though, reveals clues that the two murders are linked, and as Hazard gets closer to answers, he uncovers a conspiracy of murder and betrayal that goes deeper--and closer to home--than he could ever expect.

Pretty Pretty Boys

Auggie is starting his first year at Wroxall College. It’s a punishment, and he’s determined to make his way through the year, prove himself, and earn the right to go back home. Theo is a grad student recovering from a terrible car accident. He’s lost his husband and their daughter, and he’s trying to figure out how to keep going. When both are tangled up in a murder, though, they have to set their personal problems aside and work together—first to clear their names, and then, when the killer turns his attention on them, to survive. But what might really kill them is finishing a seminar together on King Lear.

They Told Me I Was Everything

Shaw and North are best friends, private detectives, and in danger of losing their agency. A single bad case, followed by crippling lawsuits, has put them on the brink of closing shop. Until, that is, a client walks into their Benton Park office. Matty Fennmore is young, blond, and beautiful, and he’s in danger. When he asks for Shaw and North’s help foiling a blackmail scheme, the detectives are quick to accept. The conspiracy surrounding Matty runs deeper than Shaw and North expect. As they dig into the identity of Matty’s blackmailer, they are caught in a web that touches politicians, the local LGBT community, and the city’s police. An attack on Matty drives home the rising stakes of the case, and Shaw and North must race to find the blackmailer before he can silence Matty. But a budding romance lays bare long-buried feelings between Shaw and North, and as their relationship splinters, solving the case may come at the cost of their friendship.

Orientation

Vie Eliot arrives in the small town of Vehpese, Wyoming with little more than the clothes—and scars—on his back. Determined to make a new life for himself after escaping his abusive mother, he finds that living with his estranged father brings its own problems. Then Samantha Oates, the girl with blue hair, goes missing, and Vie might be the only one who can find her. His ability to read emotions and gain insight into other people’s darkest secrets makes him the perfect investigator, with only one small problem: he wants nothing to do with his gift. When the killer begins contacting Vie through a series of strange cards, though, Vie is forced to hone his ability, because Samantha was not the killer’s only target. And, as Vie learns, he is not the only psychic in town.

Mr. Big Empty

It's almost Christmas, and Emery Hazard finds himself face to face with his own personal nightmare: going on a double date with his partner--and boyhood crush--John-Henry Somerset. Hazard brings his boyfriend; Somers brings his estranged wife. Things aren't going to end well.When a strange call interrupts dinner, however, Hazard and his partner become witnesses to a shooting. The victims: Somers's father, and the daughter of a high school friend. The crime is inexplicable. There is no apparent motive, no connection between the victims, and no explanation for how the shooter reached his targets.Determined to get answers, Hazard and Somers move forward with their investigation in spite of mounting pressure to stop. Their search for the truth draws them into a dark web of conspiracy and into an even darker tangle of twisted love and illicit desire. And as the two men come face to face with the passions and madness behind the crime, they must confront their own feelings for each other--and the hard truths that neither man is ready to accept.

Paternity Case

Everything in Emery Hazard's life is finally going well: his boyfriend, Nico, is crazy about him; he has a loyal partner at work; and he has successfully closed a series of difficult murders. By all accounts, he should be happy. What he can't figure out, then, is why he's so damn miserable.After a fight with Nico, Hazard needs work to take his mind off his relationship. And someone in town is happy to oblige by murdering the sheriff. The job won't be easy; the sheriff had enemies, lots of them, and narrowing down the list of suspects will be difficult. Difficult, but routine.The arrival of a special prosecutor, however, throws the case into turmoil, and Hazard and Somers find themselves sidelined. With an agenda of his own, the prosecutor forces the case toward his favorite suspect, while Hazard and Somers scramble to find the real killer. As the people they care about are drawn into the chaos, Hazard and Somers have to fight to keep what they love--and to keep each other. To find the killer, they will have to reveal what each has kept buried for years: their feelings for each other.And for Hazard, that's a hell of a lot scarier than murder.

Guilt by Association

After a recent case with a treacherous client, North and Shaw are ready to go back to work building Borealis Investigations. They’re also ready to go back to dodging their feelings for each other, with neither man ready to deal with the powerful emotions the Matty Fennmore case stirred up. Everything is getting back to normal when their secretary asks for help: her girlfriend’s boss has gone missing. Shep Collins runs a halfway house for LGBTQ kids and is a prominent figure in St. Louis’s gay community. When he disappears, however, dark truths begin to emerge about Shep’s past: his string of failed relationships, a problem with disappearing money, and his work, years before, as one of the foremost proponents of conversion therapy. When Shep’s body turns up at the halfway house, the search for a missing person becomes the search for a murderer. As North and Shaw probe for answers, they find that they are not the only ones who have come looking for the truth about Shep Collins. Their investigation puts them at odds with the police who are working the same case, and in that conflict, North and Shaw find threads leading back to the West End Slasher—the serial killer who almost took Shaw’s life in an alley seven years before. As the web of an ancient conspiracy comes to light, Shaw is driven to find answers, and North faces what might be his last chance to tell Shaw how he really feels.

Triangulation

It all starts to go wrong at the shooting gallery. Emery Hazard and his boyfriend, John-Henry Somerset, just want to enjoy the day at the Dore County Independence Fair. At the shooting gallery, though, Hazard comes face to face with one of his old bullies: Mikey Grames. Even as a drugged-out wreck, Mikey is a reminder of all the ugliness in Hazard's past. Worse, Mikey seems to know something Hazard doesn't--something about the fresh tension brewing in town.When the Chief of Police interrupts Hazard's day at the fair, she has a strange request. She doesn't want Hazard and Somers to solve a murder. She wants them to prevent one. The future victim? Mayor Sherman Newton--a man who has tried to have Hazard and Somers killed at least once.Hazard and Somers try to work out the motive of the man threatening Newton, and the trail leads them into a conspiracy of corrupt law enforcement, white supremacists, and local politicians. As Hazard and Somers dig into the case, their search takes them into the past, where secrets have lain buried for twenty years.Determined to get to the truth, Hazard finds himself racing for answers, but he discovers that sometimes the past isn't buried very deep. Sometimes, it isn't dead. Sometimes, it isn't even past. And almost always, it's better left alone.

Criminal Past

Elien Martel is a survivor, but surviving, he’s beginning to discover, isn’t the same thing as living. In the house he shares with his much older boyfriend, Elien spends his days trying to stay as far away from living as possible. Living, he has learned, means that sooner or later you’ll get hurt. When a member of Elien’s support group dies under strange circumstances, though, Elien finds himself in a web of bizarre coincidences. The responding officer turns out to be another member of Elien’s support group—a man named Mason, who has made no effort to hide his dislike of Elien. Then, just a few days later, Mason tries to kill Elien in front of dozens of witnesses. As violence ripples through Elien’s world, he begins to suspect that the coincidences are not coincidences at all. Something is at work behind the cascade of tragedies, something vicious and intelligent. Something that has wanted Elien for a long time. To defeat it, Elien will have to do what he fears most and face the darkness in his own past. Worse, he’ll have to take the risk of trying to live again.

Stray Fears

Domestic Animals (Hazard and Somerset

The Rational Faculty (Hazard and Somerset

After almost twenty years, Emery Hazard finally has the man he loves. But things with his boyfriend and fellow detective, John-Henry Somerset, are never easy, and they’ve been more complicated lately for two reasons: Somers’s ex-wife and daughter. No matter what Hazard does, he can’t seem to get away from the most important women in his boyfriend’s life. While Hazard struggles with his new reality (changing dirty diapers, just to start), a bizarre murder offers a distraction. John Oscar Walden, the leader of a local cult, is found dead by the police, and the case falls to Hazard and Somers. The investigation takes the two detectives into the cult’s twisted relationships and the unswerving demands of power and faith. But the deeper Hazard looks into the cult, the deeper he must look into his own past, where belief and reason have already clashed once. And as Hazard struggles to protect the most vulnerable of Walden’s victims, he uncovers a deeper, more vicious plot behind Walden’s murder, and Hazard finds himself doing what he never expected: racing to save the killer. Only, that is, if Somers doesn’t need him to babysit.

Reasonable Doubt

The Same Breath

Eli and Dag survived a monster. Two monsters, in fact. A year later, though, they’re still trying to settle into a ‘regular’ life. Dag is working hard in school. It’s not going great. Eli is working hard at…being a better Eli. He’s eating right. Most of the time. He’s thinking about exercise in healthy ways. He’s ok with how he looks, as long as he doesn’t walk past any mirrors. He goes out some nights, though. He goes across the lake, back to Bragg, where the monsters were. And he’s not sure why. He’s not sure what keeps calling him back. When a woman is brutally murdered and an eyewitness claims to have seen the killer transform into a mysterious light, Eli and Dag are forced to set aside their own problems and face a difficult truth: there is another monster out there. Worse, there doesn’t seem to be anybody else who can stop it from killing again. But not all monsters are the same, as Eli and Dag discover. And the most dangerous monster might be the one who can give you what you’ve always wanted.

Cascade Hunger

C.S. Poe

Rufus O’Callaghan has eked out a living on the streets of New York City by helping the police put away criminals as a confidential informant. But when Rufus shows up for an arranged meeting and finds his handler dead, his already-uncertain life is thrown into a tailspin. Now someone is trying to kill Rufus too, and he’s determined to find out why. After leaving the Army under less than desirable circumstances, Sam Auden has drifted from town to town, hitching rides and catching Greyhounds, until he learns that a former Army buddy, now a police detective in New York City, has died by suicide. Sam knows that’s not right, and he immediately sets out to get answers. As Rufus and Sam work together to learn the truth of their friend’s death, they find themselves entangled in a web of lies, cover-ups, and accelerating danger. And when they witness a suspect killed in cold blood, they realize they’re running out of time.

A Friend in the Dark

You don’t have to die to get a second line, but it’s easier than getting married. Second Line is a collection of short stories connected to The DuPage Parish Mysteries. It includes the following: “Housewarming” Dag and Eli host a housewarming party at their home in New Orleans—but not without a few bumps along the way. This story is set after Stray Fears. “Housekeeping” Dag and Eli go about their lives while trying to avoid chores. This story is set after Cascade Hunger. “Second Line” A series of vignettes leading up to Dag and Eli’s wedding. This story is set after Lethal Control. Please note that the first two stories were distributed previously in various formats. “Second Line” is exclusively available in this collection.

Second Line

Only days have passed since Vie Eliot’s murderous half-brother—a dangerous, out-of-control psychic—was stopped from killing the people Vie loves most, but Vie is ready for his life to return to normal. He has plans. Big plans. Make the cross country team, pick up his grades, and spend a lot of time with his boyfriend. On the day of cross country tryouts, though, Vie finds one of the teachers dead—and Vie refuses to believe that the death was a suicide. As he searches for the killer, or killers, he discovers that a conspiracy exists in the small town of Vehpese: a conspiracy that might be older and deeper than Vie first suspects, a conspiracy of drugs and human trafficking that might also be tied, in some way Vie can’t quite understand, to his own abilities—and to the other psychic abilities in his town. When the murderers turn their attention to Vie, though, he discovers that his powers might not be up to the task. He faces ghosts, ancient monsters, and even an evil substitute teacher, but unless he can confront his past, and the trauma that lies there, he might not manage to save the people he cares about. He might not even survive himself.

Gregory Ashe

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