Going Down For The Count

Book excerpt: In Someone Killed His Boyfriend, David Stukas introduced the most fabulously unlikely trio of gay sleuths this side of Provincetown. Now, Michael and Robert and their lesbian sidekick, Monette, are in the vichyssoise again when Robert's romance with a count goes from fabulous to flatline. . . It ain't easy being green--especially if you're Robert Willsop, a boy from Michigan searching for love in the Prada-filled, Chilean sea bass-eating world of gay New York. While his best friend Michael is perfectly content to detail every bit of his latest hot-wax demo over a plate of fifty-dollar pasta, poverty-stricken Robert longs for a good, old-fashioned romance. So when a chance meeting with the gorgeous, fabulously wealthy Count Siegfried Von Schmidt leads to a whirlwind romance and a marriage proposal, Robert waves goodbye to his dumpy studio apartment and dives in with heart, soul and a brand-new Rolex wristwatch. Instead of being gloriously happy for him--and angling for a spot on the Count's private Lear jet--Michael and Monette are deeply suspicious. After all, Robert's dates aren't usually described as rich, handsome and cultured. "Psychotic, mentally crippled and pathetic" is more like it. Robert credits their lack of support to extreme jealousy, and leaves for Germany in a huff, or as huffy as Midwesterners can get. For once, everything is going his way. In fact, until the Count is discovered dead--with a rather large knife in his back--life is just ducky. Suddenly trapped in the European vacation from hell and rapidly becoming murder suspect number one, Robert calls in the troops. Soon Michael, Robert and Monette are traipsing all over Germany, looking for clues to a killer cold enough to murder a man and leave a mess on the Berber carpets. Fast-paced and charmingly catty, Going Down For The Count is a delightful romp of a mystery that takes murder to fashionably funny new heights. David Stukas has not written any screenplays, has never received a Pulitzer, and is not a regular contributor to National Public Radio. He is, however, the author of Someone Killed His Boyfriend and Going Down For The Count. He lives in California and is currently working on his next mystery, Wearing White To The Black Party.