I recently enjoyed reading a Josh Lanyon murder mystery, The Ghost Wore Yellow Socks.

Take a large and creepy old house in Vermont with dark, mysterious shadows everywhere and unexplained drafts turned into apartment dwellings with a landlady from hell.

We are then introduced to the mild mannered, asthmatic and shy Perry Foster – a 23-year-old struggling artist with “Bambi” eyes working as a librarian.

Perry Foster then discovers a dead body in his bathtub and after he runs seeking assistance, the body vanishes and he is not believed by anyone except for his surly neighbor Nick Reno, a former Navy SEAL.

Now add several eccentric sometimes ominous and threatening fellow boarders, any one of them perhaps being the culprit, for various reasons.

Nick and Perry team up to try to figure out what is happening in their boarding house. Perry seems so fragile at the beginning, yet he has a core of stubbornness, innocent idealism and strength that keeps him going no matter how tough things get.

Nick starts out surly, cold, and even mean at times, but he too has hidden depths. Nick’s protective instinct evolves into something more as he comes to respect the younger man for his own inner strength and talents.

With a gay romance subtly and realistically woven into a plot that is mostly centered on the mystery, I did find The Ghost Wore Yellow Socks an enjoyable read.

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