Looking Glass Lives

Before he began writing fiction primarily marketed to a gay readership, Felice Picano was a noted author of suspense and supernatural tales. Smart as the Devil and Eyes were critical and popular successes when they were released in the mid-'70s, and Picano returns to the genre with Looking Glass Lives, a contemporary gothic thriller that draws upon such diverse sources as Robert Nathan's classic novel Portrait of Jennie and Kenneth Branagh's film Dead Again. As with all of Picano's fiction (especially his bestselling 1994 novel, Like People in History), Looking Glass Lives is compulsively readable and always surprising. Roger Lynch, his wife, Karen, and his cousin Chas are caught in a dangerous, sexually fraught emotional ménage è trois, but only when Roger begins to unearth the deep, tormented secrets of their small New England town's history does he comprehend the real crux--and horror--of their relationship. Picano understands his characters and is unafraid to explore and expose their most intimate emotional and sexual needs. But he is also a master of suspense, and as Looking Glass Lives hurtles towards its shocking climax, we are both disturbed and terribly pleased to have been on the trip. --Michael Bronski