Works by
Josh Lanyon
(Writer)

Collections

• The Adrien English Mysteries (2007)
  Comprises the first two Adrien English novels, Fatal Shadows and A Dangerous Thing, this e-book collection introduced a whole new slew of readers to Josh's work.
  Order directly from loose-id.com.

• Collected Novellas
  Like a little murder and mayhem with your man-on-man romance? Award-winning novelist Josh Lanyon’s first ever collection of short stories and novellas, spread over two volumes, will keep you turning pages long into the night.

  • Volume I includes these witty, sexy, and action-packed reader favorites:

    • "Dangerous Ground"

    • "Snowball in Hell"

    • "Cards on the Table"

    • "In Sunshine and In Shadow" (exclusive to this collection)
       

  • And Volume II includes another five tasty tales, also guaranteed to get a rise out of you:

    • "The Dark Horse"

    • "In a Dark Wood"

    • "Ghost of a Chance"

    • "I Spy Something Bloody"

    • "By Limited Engagement"

Series

Adrien English Mystery Series

1. Fatal Shadows (2000)
   Los Angeles bookseller and aspiring mystery author Adrien English opens his front door to murder one sunny morning. His old high school buddy (and employee) has been found stabbed to death in a back alley following a loud and very public argument with Adrien the previous evening.
   
   Naturally the cops want to ask Adrien a few questions; they are none too impressed with his answers, and when a few hours later someone breaks into Adrien's shop and ransacks it, the law is inclined to think Adrien is trying to divert suspicion from himself.
   
   Adrien knows better. Adrien knows he is next on the killer's list.

2. A Dangerous Thing (2001)
   A group of university archaeologists are camped out in a Californian forest. One of the team, of Native American descent, is convinced the place is haunted – and the weird nighttime sounds that are spooking them all out are slowly convincing the rest of them. It sounds more like the setup for an episode of Scooby Doo than a murder mystery, but the latest novel from Gay Men’s Press enters areas that Hanna-Barbera’s 'Mystery Machine crew' would never dare approach.
   
   In A Dangerous Thing by Josh Lanyon, bookseller-turned-crime writer Adrien English escapes out to the Pine Shadow Ranch, bequeathed to him by his beloved grandmother, in the hope of overcoming his writer’s block and to sort out in his head his frustrating relationship with the S/M-obsessed LAPD detective that he met in Lanyon’s first book, Fatal Shadows.
   
   English finds he has little time for writing, though, when he discovers a dead body on his driveway – one that has disappeared by the time the local sheriff turns up. Any hopes that this would be a comedy romp disappear further when we realize that the disappearing corpse is that of the curmudgeonly caretaker. So, without giving too much away, we can safely assume that he won’t be unmasked at the end, claiming in true Scooby style he would have gotten away with it too, if it hadn’t been for you meddling homosexuals...
   
   When a second corpse turns up (assumed by the none-too-intelligent local police to be the hereto missing body), suspicion falls on English himself. His case doesn’t look much brighter when he discovers that the caretaker was growing nearly a million dollars’ worth of cannabis on site. Together, English and his on-off boyfriend seek to solve the mystery of the two murders – and just what is behind the strange goings-on affecting the archaeologists.
   
   Lanyon’s second book is a riveting romp, moving along at an incredible pace. Alongside the tensions of the murder mystery, the two main characters’ growing togetherness slowly knit. Detective Jake Riordan coming to terms with his first relationship with a man manages to be touching with being cliché-ridden.

3. The Hell You Say (2006) -- Finalist 2006 Lambda Literary Award for Gay Men's Mystery)
   The long anticipated third novel in the Adrien English series finds the “ill-starred and bookish” mystery writer and bookseller battling demons—maybe literally.
   
   After bookstore clerk Angus flees following terrifying death threats, Adrien must contend with a mysterious Satanic cult, a hot and handsome university professor, and his on-again/off-again relationship with closeted LAPD Homicide Detective Jake Riordan.
   
   And, oh, yes, murder...

• The Adrien English Mysteries: The First Adrien English Omnibus (2007)
  Comprises the first two Adrien English novels, Fatal Shadows and A Dangerous Thing, this e-book collection introduced a whole new slew of readers to Josh's work.  Order directly from loose-id.com

4. Death of a Pirate King (2008)
   Gay bookseller and reluctant amateur sleuth Adrien English's writing career is suddenly taking off. His first novel, Murder Will Out, has been optioned by notorious Hollywood actor Paul Kane. But when murder makes an appearance at a dinner party, who should be called in but Adrien's former lover, handsome closeted detective Jake Riordan, now a Lieutenant with LAPD -- which may just drive Adrien's new boyfriend, sexy UCLA professor Guy Snowden, to commit a murder of his own!

5. The Dark Tide (2009)
   Order directly from loose-id.com
   As if recovering from heart surgery beneath the gaze of his over-protective family wasn’t exasperating enough, someone keeps trying to break into Adrien English’s bookstore. What is this determined midnight intruder searching for?
   
   When a half-century old skeleton tumbles out of the wall in the midst of the renovation of Cloak and Dagger Bookstore renovation, Adrien turns to hot and handsome ex-lover Jake Riordan -- now out-of-the closet and working as a private detective.
   
   Jake is only too happy to have reason to stay in close contact with Adrien, but there are more surprises in Adrien’s past than either one of them expects -- and one of them may prove hazardous to Jake’s own heart.

1. Somebody Killed His Editor (2009)
   as a mystery writer, thanks to the popularity of elderly spinster sleuth, Miss Butterwith and her ingenious cat, Mr. Pinkerton. But sales are down in everything but chick lit and Christopher’s new editor doesn’t like geriatric gumshoes. It’s a pink, pink world for Kit.
   
   Reluctantly the reclusive Christopher agrees to attend a mystery writer’s conference at a remote Northern California winery. But no sooner does he arrive then the bridge to the outside world washes out. On his trek to the Blue Heron Lodge, Christopher discovers the body of a woman in the woods. If nearly two decades of mystery-writing are anything to go by, the woman doesn’t appear to have died a natural death.
   
   Thanks to the ongoing storm and washed-out bridge, local law enforcement is not able to come to the rescue. Déjà vu! It’s practically like all those classic murder mysteries in isolated country manors that Christopher has been penning for sixteen years! If only Miss Butterwith was on hand. Or even Mr. Pinkerton....

• Strange Fortune (December 1, 2009)
  Dashing soldier of fortune Valentine Strange, late of his Majesty's 21st Benhali Lancers needs money. Happily, the wealthy Holy Orders of Harappu are desperate to retrieve the diadem of the Goddess Purya from an ancient temple deep in the White Mountains--a dangerous territory Strange knows well. The pay is too good and the job sounds too easy, but Strange is not in position to refuse. When Master Aleister Grimshaw, a dangerous witch with a traitorous lineage joins the expedition, Strange begins to suspect that more is at stake than the retrieval of a mere symbolic relic. Grimshaw knows an ancient evil surrounds the diadem. The same evil once hunted him--and still haunts his dreams. However, experience has taught him to keep his suspicions to himself or risk being denounced as a madman. Again. Harried by curses, bandits, and unnatural creatures, Strange and Grimshaw plunge onward. But when a demonic power wakes and the civilized world descends into revolution, their tenuous friendship is threatened as each man must face the destruction of the life he has known.

• Footsteps in the Dark Partners in Crime #3 (2008) by Josh Lanyon and Sarah Black
  Footsteps in The Dark Partners in Crime 3 By Josh Lanyon & Sarah Black Spy Something Bloody Espionage was always a game, but now British spy Mark Hardwicke wants to retire and settle down with ex-lover Dr. Stephen Thorpe -- if Stephen will have him. Unfortunately, Stephen has other plans -- and so do the terrorists who want Mark dead. Murder At Black Dog Springs Code-talker Logan Kee returns to his home on the Navajo Reservation from the battlefields of Saipan. But a new battle is waiting for him. Uranium mining has begun within the four sacred mountains. When the old hand-trembler dies at Black Dog Springs, rumors fly that Leetso, the yellow monster, has been set free to walk the land.

• Mexican Heat (2008) by Josh Lanyon and Laura Baumbach
  Tough, street-smart SFPD Detective Gabriel Sandalini is willing to do whatever it takes to bring down West Coast crime boss Ricco Botelli --including a dangerous, deep undercover gig as one of Botelli's hired guns. But Gabriel's best laid plans may come crashing down around him when he falls hard for Antonio Lorenzo, the sexy, suave lieutenant of a rival Mexican drug lord. Turns out Antonio may have a few secrets of his own: secrets that could destroy both men and the fragile bond between them.

• The Ghost Who Wore Yellow Socks (2008)
  Josh's first stand-alone novel. His romantic weekend in ruins, shy twenty-something artist Perry Foster learns that things can always get worse when he returns home from San Francisco to find a dead body in his bathtub. A dead body in a very ugly sportscoat -- and matching socks. The dead man is a stranger to Perry, but that's not much of a comfort; how did a strange dead man get in a locked flat at the isolated Alton Estate in the wilds of the "Northeast Kingdom" of Vermont? Perry turns to help from "tall, dark and hostile" former navy SEAL Nick Reno -- but is Reno all that he seems?

• The Dark Horse (2007)
  Available directly from loose-id.com.
  Love is a dark horse—and Sean Fairchild is in for the ride of his life.
  
  Paul Hammond is dead. That’s what tough and sexy LAPD Detective Daniel Moran tells his lover, Hollywood actor Sean Fairchild—and Sean wants to believe him, but what about those threatening postcards in Hammond’s handwriting? What about the fact that he’s seeing Hammond everywhere he goes? Yes, Sean’s had some emotional problems in the past, but that was a long time ago and he’s not imagining things, so why is Dan looking at him that way?
  
  The last thing Sean needs is someone doubting him, especially when he’s competing for the coveted leading role in the screen adaptation of The Charioteer. But then again, as ex-lover and manager Steve points out, what does Sean really know about his new boyfriend?
  
  Dan is a dark horse—and maybe Sean is betting too much on this relationship. It not just Sean’s career at stake, or his relationship, or even his sanity—-it’s his life.

• Scared Stiff (2007)
  A eclectic mix of inspired stories from best-selling authors Josh Lanyon, Laura Baumbach, Sarah Black, and William Maltese. Scared Stiff offers four very different tales of m/m ghostly doings that'll have readers panting (in more ways than one) under the covers.