Book Chat: Neil Albert
By Elizabeth Parker
Most
transgendered characters in mainstream books tend
to be sideshow freaks; either dastardly villains,
or quirky supporting characters. When a major
character has a transgender experience, it is a
novelty, or a McGuffin as Alfred Hitchcock liked
to put it. I think this is a reflection of
society's view of the transgender experience. If
this is true, then as you'll see from this
mystery series, society's view may be changing.
First let me say that of
necessity, I'll need to ruin the main surprise
for you in the first book. But with your
transgender awareness, you will figure out the
surprise long before the author intended anyway.
In Neil Albert's series of
month-titled mysteries, the major character, Dave
Garrett, is a disbarred lawyer turned private
detective. He has been disbarred for taking the
law exam in place of his wife(no, he didn't dress
as her), an intelligent would-be lawyer with a
testing complex. She had failed the bar exam
seven times before even though she was an
exceptionally bright student. After a failed
suicide attempt, Dave finally agrees to take the
test for her, but is caught and disbarred. To top
off the irony, this causes Dave and his wife to
divorce. Dave is an intensely self-analyzing man,
with immense talents for detection and a
stubborness which stands him in good stead in his
line of work.
In the first book, "January
Corpse", Dave is hired to find out what
happened to a lawyer, Dan Wilson, who disappeared under
mysterious circumstances. In the course of his investigation,
he encounters the lawyer's sister, Lisa Wilson. She is an
attractive young woman, a former nurse, who is treated
initially as another subject in Dave's investigation. Though
forthcoming, Dave suspects she is not telling him everything
she knows. He breaks into her house to find out more, and
encounters two thugs. They surprise him and work him over.
Lisa comes home during this incident and shoots them,
displaying a great deal of composure. Dave stays with her to
protect her, and they team up to find out what is going on.
As people often do when thrown together under dire
circumstances, they end up lovers. But at the end of the
book, Dave figures out that Lisa is actually the missing
lawyer. In a lengthy scene, Lisa explains her childhood, how
she actually had a sister named Lisa who helped her
crossdress. The person who actually disappeared was Lisa, not
Dan. Dan took her identity to hide from the mob and fulfill
his desire to become a woman at the same time. Interestingly
enough, Dave displays no revulsion whatsoever at Lisa's
revelations. It is more of an issue for Lisa than Dave. At
the end of the book, Dave and Lisa decide to stay together as
a couple and take a vacation to Cancun. At the beginning of the next book,
"The February Trouble", we find
that Dave and Lisa had a fight in Cancun and broke up. It is
not clear what happened. Lisa doesn't appear through the rest
of this book and the next one, "Burning
March". Consequently if you wish to read this
series only for transgender activity you might want to skip
these books. But if you enjoy good mysteries, I found them
quite good. Then in "Cruel
April", Lisa returns when Dave asks her for
help with a particularly mystifying case. He has fallen in
love with a married woman, Kate, since he and Lisa broke up,
and Kate has disappeared on a plane flight to finally join
Dave for good. Midway through the book he decides he needs
help of the sort the intelligent, unflappable Lisa can
provide. She shows up like a good friend would, and they put
their differences behind them to find Kate. It is quite clear
that Dave continues to find Lisa attractive even while
distracted by his concern for Kate. I found this to be the
best book of the series in terms of suspense and the return
of Lisa only spiced it up. Dave is pretty
beat up physically and emotionally by the end of the book,
and
"Appointment
In May" finds him recuperating.
Lisa is living with her mother and dating someone
else. But she wants to break into private
investigating, having shown an affinity for the
work while helping Dave in the first book. She
must serve several years of internship before she
can get her own license, so she negotiates with
Dave, who is having money problems, into allowing
her to work for him in return for financial help.
She does help him quite a bit throughout this
book. A strong subplot has Dave trying to find
out about her boyfriend, only to ultimately
discover that there is no boyfriend; Lisa has
made him up. She is a great help in solving this
mystery and the book hints at a remaining strong
attraction between her and Dave. Interestingly
her transsexual status seems to not be a factor,
only Dave's stubborn desire to not have a
relationship with someone he works with. Their
emotions are very complicated, just as in
real-life.
In the latest outing, "Tangled
June", Dave and Lisa team up to solve his
latest case, Dave's own mysterious background. Lisa's
increasing attraction to Dave and her desire to practice
private investigation leads her to nose into his background.
Dave's origins have always been somewhat hazy, but he has no
desire to know anything further. That's not enough for Lisa,
who starts poking around. This leads to great tension between
the two, as you might imagine. When Dave discovers her
activity, he is forced to pursue it further by taking a trip
to Los Angeles with Lisa tagging along. They split up the
work, and as the novel progresses we realize that Lisa has
become a full-fledged major character in her own right. Dave
and Lisa's viewpoints are presented alternatively, so that
each character's views and activities are sympathized with
fully. Finally, as the discoveries mount, Dave and Lisa come
together as lovers again. Their passion is quite real, having
been submerged for so long, and their taste for somewhat
kinky sex is hinted at. At last, some of the facts behind
their breakup in Cancun are revealed to each other and their
relationship escalates to the next step. Throughout this series Lisa is presented so
sympathetically and realistically, so that we come to accept
her as a real person, not just a novelty. Her transgenderism
is not ignored, and is discussed quite openly. But it is just
another facet of her personality. In fact, it begins to seem
so normal, that the thrill factor goes away. But as education
for the general public, and as an indicator of societal
acceptance, this series works very well. I want to give a big thanks to Tammy Fisher, who
brought this series to my attention. It is through your
suggestions that many of the best books are discovered. So if
you've got any, just email Elizabeth
Parker. (if this doesn't work, try my old email
address) Bibliography Albert, Neil, "Appointment in May",
Walker & Co., June 1996, ISBN: 0802732798 (Hardback)
Albert, Neil, "Burning March", E.P.
Dutton, March 1994, ISBN: 0525937188 (Hardback) Albert, Neil, "Burning March", Signet,
March 1995, ISBN: 0451178602 (Paperback) Albert, Neil, "Cruel April", Signet,
April 1996, ISBN: 0451178610 (Paperback) Albert, Neil, "Cruel April", E.P.
Dutton, April 1995, ISBN: 0525937196 (Hardback) Albert, Neil, "The February Trouble",
Walker & Co., December 1992, ISBN: 0802712444
(Hardback) Albert, Neil, "The
February Trouble", Signet, February 1994, ISBN:
0451404173 (Paperback) Albert, Neil,
"The January Corpse", Walker & Co., October
1991, ISBN: 0802732062 (Hardback) Albert,
Neil, "The January Corpse", Onyx Books, February
1994, ISBN: 0451403770 (Paperback) Albert, Neil, "Tangled June", Walker
& Co., June 1997, ISBN: 0802733050 (Hardback)
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