Your Lonely Nights Are Over by Adam Sass (review)

Reviewed by: Your Lonely Nights Are Over by Adam Sass Wesley Jacques Sass, Adam Your Lonely Nights Are Over. Viking, 2023 [416p] Trade ed. ISBN 9780593526583 $19.99 E-book ed. ISBN 9780593526590 $10.99 Reviewed from digital galleys R Gr. 9-12 When a buzzy new docuseries returns attention to a fifty-year-old killing spree in San Diego, a small town in Arizona becomes the setting for a modern, queer reboot, with two gay besties—Cole Cardoso and Frankie Dearie—at its bloody [End Page 68] center. The original killer targeted the lonely and heartbroken violently enough to coerce desperate hookups and pity dating, and this time around, the M. O. is nearly identical, putting a high school Queer Club on alert, forcing some awkward coupling, and placing major suspicion on Cole and Dearie, two healthily horny outcasts. Cole, in particular, as a brown, proudly out gay boy with a sardonic wit and biting attitude, has had run-ins with Club members' sex-shaming and racist bullying before, so he's a person of interest as he has direct ties to the victims who start receiving the ominous texts that lead directly to barbed wire lynching within 24 hours. Dearie never once doubts the innocence of his sometimes little spoon, sometimes kissing partner, always sort of flirty best friend, but an obvious frame job accompanies the rising death toll, so the two are determined to solve the mystery while serving looks. The severity of the stakes at hand rarely stifles the rapport of the duo who are giving gay joy and resolve in the face of serial murder. The spotlight on queer loneliness, precarious and fatal, makes the relationships and humor even more potent as the murder mystery ultimately unwraps itself with Scream-esque surprises, revealing not just one killer, but an ambitious apprentice with a deeply personal agenda that the Final Gays may not see coming. Copyright © 2023 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois