Reviewed by Heather C.

TITLE: Greg Honey
AUTHOR: Russ Gregory
PUBLISHER: Bold Strokes Publishing
LENGTH: 264 pages
BLURB: Honey Agency: If we can’t solve your problem, we’re sorry.

Greg Honey has bigger issues than a sketchy tagline for his one-man detective agency. To start with, his mother is pressuring him to date debutantes, his stalker keeps leaving threatening messages, his new boyfriend is at least four levels higher up on the gay boy food chain, and his best friend, Willa, has lost her panties. To top it all off, things keep pointing toward trouble at the family estate. Will Greg figure out what’s going on in time to help Willa find her panties? Lord knows he wants to because Greg is more than a detective… he’s also a Honey.

REVIEW:

“Honey Detective Agency, when you need a dick, please rent this one.”

Well this was a fun trip!

Twenty-eight year old Greg Honey is the gay black sheep of a wealthy, Austin family, living in the gatehouse on the Honey estate trying to take his PI business to a serious level…and pay his bills. The poor guy doesn’t even have his own car. This is a comedy first, mystery second, and the romance falls way at the end. Think Stephanie Plum meets Kinsey Millhone with a big gay twist…and more drag queens.

First and foremost, the dialogue, the characters, and the situations were all hilarious! I seriously laughed out loud with nearly every page I read and frequently found myself reading out loud some of the best scenes to my SO. Greg, the MC, is pretty much an impulsive fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants kind of person; says and does whatever comes to mind and then has to deal with the back lash. Take, for instance, his big “coming out” outburst at a dinner party when his condescending, socialite mother asks him to “please pass the peas.” Maybe he inherited those tendencies from his uninhibited, ninety-three year old grandmother who vocally requests to know all about the ins-and-outs of gay man sex? Then there was Willa, Greg’s boob-challenged, handgun-slash-Taser packing, chatty BFF who has absolutely no brain-to mouth filter and doesn’t listen to anything Greg tries to tell her. She’s totally my favorite character in the whole book!

Second was the mystery…or shall I say “mysteries”: Willa frantically looking for her stolen panties; Russ Buttons, fashion-clashing aficionado, looking for his long lost brother Milton; Gary Weiss, the drag queen insurance adjuster, looking to prove a fraudulent claim; oh, and Russ, again, wanting proof that his boyfriend-slash-husband, Billy, is obviously having an affair since they haven’t done the nasty in two whole days!! Eh, the mysteries were fun, but didn’t turn out to be too complicated and wrapped up a bit too conveniently. Like I said, the humor is primary in this story.

And last was Greg’s romance with Off-off-off Broadway actor Matt Kendall…currently starring in the local production of Rent. I chose to discuss him last because he hardly ranks as a secondary character, more like a tertiary one instead. All I really know is that Greg has been lusting for Matt for a while and then suddenly Matt wants to hook up, and then two days later they are in love, and all the hooking up and falling in love all happened off-the-page…so this really missed the romance train for me because I never really felt anything for Matt, although he does seem like a decent guy and they should live happily ever after…maybe.

Overall, I had a lot of fun reading this, and I really enjoyed the author’s writing style. I just prefer my reading material to involve some kind of romantic tension between the characters. I did start to get a little bored about halfway through the story, but honestly, I think that was because of personal preference and not the actual execution of the story.

So if you’re in the mood for a fun, humorous, character-driven mystery that is light on the romance, give this one a try. If this turns into a series, I will definitely be reading the sequel.

Heather’s Rating:

BUY LINK: Bold Strokes Books  ::  Amazon

==================================
Heather C. is one of the official reviewers on The Blog of Sid Love.

To read all her reviews, click the link: HEATHER’S REVIEWS
=====================================================