Drag Queen in the Court of Death
1964 was a wild year for Michael Dunn-Barton, the hero of Caro Soles’ new mystery novel, Drag Queen in the Court of Death. Married, in his early twenties, he fell in love with Ronnie Lipinsky, one of his high school students. Their affair ended dramatically, and Michael left Toronto for twenty years.
Drag Queen begins as Michael, now the executor of Ronnie’s estate, makes a gruesome discovery: a mummified body jammed into a trunk in his former lover’s apartment. Trying first to discover the body’s identity, and then to understand who Ronnie really was, plunges the always-reserved Michael back into the past.
Quirky characters, an intriguing mystery, and a look back at the world of draft dodgers and gay neophytes in 1960s Toronto make Drag Queen both a page-turner and a sensitive look at the way gay men recreate themselves, with stories or the magic of a little makeup and a killer dress.
Haworth Press 2007
