Fingering the Family Jewels

Fingering the Family Jewels by Greg Lilly is an engaging and very well written tale of family strife. Unlike other books written in the first person, Lilly's peripheral characters-- richly written to perfection in their true southern style-don't constantly drag the reader's attention away from the observant protagonist, Derek Mason. He has our full attention throughout Lilly's first novel in the Derek Mason Mystery series. Derek returns to his hometown, Charlotte, North Carolina, to attend the funeral of his beloved Aunt Walterine. It's his first trip home in the seven years since his mother, who Derek refers to as Gladys the Bitch, sent him out of state to attend school, apparently because he was gay, therefore avoiding Charlotte's premier family from embarrassment among the city's elite. But, was that really the reason she sent Derek away? Once back home, Derek discovers a deeply hidden family secret, one that would dash his conservative uncle's senatorial aspirations. He believes his ignorant, homophobic uncle is unfit to represent the voters of North Carolina. The secret Derek uncovers, with the help of handsome reporter and love interest, Daniel, has far more serious implications than loosing one election. Greg Lilly's portrayal of the elite southern family is realistic and believable. As is the case with many powerful families, their shenanigans often read like a soap opera. The Harris clan keeps everything to themselves--their secrets and perhaps even their genes. From page one, Fingering the Family Jewels is a thoroughly engaging read. Lilly leads the reader right smack into the thick of the plot and doesn't let up until the last page. I anxiously await the second installment in this new mystery series by Greg Lilly.

Starting with a very clever title, and despite some really hackneyed plot devices, "Fingering the Family Jewels" is a great quick read, perfect for an afternoon at the beach or a transcon flight. Derek Mason, a gay man living in San Francisco (where else?), returns to his family in North Carolina where a conveniently discovered diary (how many times has this been used?)implicates his Uncle Vernon (stereotyped Southern redneck bigot) who is the father of Derek's first lover, Mark Harris. (An interesting choice for a name. Can it be that the author has never heard of Martha Raye?) Many readers will dislike the Mark character for his duplicitous life but that didn't bother me. What did bother me is that Mark started diddling Derek when Mark was 19 and Derek was 14, a blatant case of child molestation. The author could have made the two boys closer in age without at all compromising their relationship or the story. There's also an algebra quiz buried in the text. If their relationship lasted for four years and eight years have lapsed since it ended, how old is each man now? I get a different answer than the author. Still, Greg Lilly shows real talent at describing characters, particularly the little old lady types who come across as brash and interesting. A big surprise is sprung at the end which, as other reviewers have noted, makes one anxious for further exploration in future stories featuring these characters.

Derek Mason isn't different from many other gay men in San Francisco, working at a "dot-com" and sharing a small apartment with a sarcastic, anorexic straight female roommate and a diva-ish cat. His background isn't different from many either, having sought a new life in California after severing ties with his fundamentalist Southern family (by mutual agreement, after he "came out" to them as gay). But the story begins eight years later, when he has an unexpected reunion he has with that family, in Charlotte, North Carolina, when he returns for the funeral of his favorite Aunt Walterene. Derek quickly faces the same bigotry and status-seeking hypocrisy in most of the members of his family, especially his mother Gladys and his uncle Vernon, who is running for the Senate. His refuge is the house of his Aunt Ruby, who was Walterene's life partner, and his unmarried older sister Valerie. Derek also gets to spend some time with his older cousin Mark (Vernon's son), who was his first lover, before Mark decided he needed to "play it straight" and get married, in order to achieve success in the family's huge construction business. In helping Ruby sort through Walterene's belongings, Derek comes across her girlhood diary, where she suggests that the reported lynching by the Klu Klux Klan of a black former family employee may have actually been done by Vernon and his father, over reports that the man had mollested Gladys as a girl. When a newspaper reporter picks up on the fact that Vernon Harris has a gay nephew, it becomes a political embarassment to the conservative "traditional values" candidate, and Derek is urged to leave town. Deciding to stay to help Ruby for a while, he becomes the target of a mysterious raspy-voiced assailant who tries to scare him out of town, which he believes may be related to his asking around concerning the lynching. "Fingering the Family Jewels" is a captivating, sexy, fast-paced and extremely creative mystery, exposing how greed and misplaced family loyalties can result in a pattern of lies, deceit, incest and possibly murder. Author Greg Lilly, previously a writer of short stories who has a background as a technical analyst (and worked at a family-owned company that provided the inspiration for this first novel), hits a home-run with this intelligent, sensitive and highly engrossing masterpiece. Much recommended!

It is a pleasure reading "Fingering the Family Jewels". Drama, mystery, romance, "Fingering the Family Jewels" is thrilling and absorbing. To top it all Lilly has created a great protagonist in Derek Mason. Sensitive, smart, romantic at heart and of course gay, this young man is immensely likable and one only wish the best for him. Only 196 pages but Lilly does not need more to tell a great story. The cover says "A Derek Mason Mystery" and I hope that means there is more to come.

This really unputdownable book is about 26 year old Derek Mason who returns home in his North Carolina hometown from which he was abandoned by his mother when in a stress situation revealing he was gay seven years ago after his lover, five years older cousin Mark left him. Quite succesful with a computer firm and very likable and attractive he comes home to find out that despite he thought about a lot of despise at his - really large, I soon lost overview about all the nephews, grandmas and siblings! - family there were quite a lot who still have friendly feelings to him. Especially interesting ... ahem ... was that married Mark was not exactly uninterested in reliving some of their better moments from childhood (Derek was 14 when their relationship started but that was not nearly one of the more scandalous secrets in the wealthy and influential Mason/Harris family). The thing with Mark got all the more interesting when hunky reporter Daniel shows interest in Derek and I really enjoyed this triangle a lot with Dereks suspicions if Mark knew Daniel better and things. Oh, by the way, there is also kind of a mystery in there and some very dramatic moments but in the end the family struggles are far more criminal than everything other. I hope this gives you an impression about the book and I can only recommend it. There is a second novel in the work and I definitely hope it is a sequel about Derek Mason.