Night of the Sadist

By Paul Laurie

Journalist Tom Maxon's investigation into his brother Bob's brutal murder takes him deep into the underworld of BDSM clubs and parties in this Agatha Christie-style mystery with a twist: Can Tom unmask the vicious killer before he strikes again?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Riverdale Avenue Books
• Release date: Apr 26, 2018
• ISBN: 9781626014459

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Night of the Sadist by Paul Laurie (edited by Maitland McDonagh)© 2018 120 Days

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Cover by Scott Carpenter

Previous Publication by 120 Days, 2012

Digital ISBN: 978-1-62601-445-9

Print: 978-1-62601-369-8

First RAB Edition April 2018

Introduction

The eye-catching title of Paul Laurie’s unexpectedly charming Night of the Sadist (1971) is both more ambiguous and less disturbing that it might appear at first glance. Granted, it does involve a genuine and murderous sadist, and the search for the killer does lead protagonist Tom Maxon—a journalist unofficially investigating the murder of his brother—deep into the BDSM community of an unnamed city I strongly suspect is San Francisco. But Tom also has a lot of sexy fun, falls in love with a butch little number named Gerry, who’s way sweeter than his leather-man drag might suggest, and learns a few illuminating things about himself.

Unlike many tales of amateur sleuths, from Agatha Christie’s beloved Miss Marple novels to the long-running television series Murder She Wrote, Tom’s investigation has a bitter and covertly political edge. Tom’s late brother Bob, an aspiring literary novelist, was found bound, gagged and mutilated in his own apartment, clearly the victim of a sex crime. But Bob paid the rent by writing gay adult novels and was known to consort with hustlers, which is enough to prompt a less-than-sensitive police officer to remark to Tom that while they’re dutifully (if not especially enthusiastically) investigating the crime, men like Bob sort of ask for this kind of thing.

Today, an observation informed by such overt homophobia would be the express route to an anti-bias training course. But in the 1960s and early ‘70s gay lives all too often didn’t much matter, particularly when they intersected with sexual assault. It’s no coincidence that an aggressive police raid on a popular gay bar sparked the 1969 Stonewall uprising, a pivotal moment in the American gay rights movement.

Night of the Sadist comes with an intriguing editorial caveat emptor, though I sincerely doubt that the average ‘70s buyer of adult novels gave much consideration to back-cover or frontispiece copy, even when it was pitched like a carnival come on: Is it a mystery with a sex twist or a sex story with a mystery twist? Who cares? It is an entertaining erotic novel by a prolific and proficient writer. It’s the who cares? that makes it—it’s all fun and games, gentle reader, don’t you worry about that murderous sadist… in any event, I come down on the side of mystery with a sex twist. Granted, the sex story is more viscerally convincing than the mystery, but structurally Night of the Sadist resembles nothing so much as a drawing room puzzler in the Christie tradition, minus the clever old lady, benevolent parsons and soothing country manners.

It unfolds in an insular community rife with hidden alliances and rivalries, and features one victim and five suspects, the hustlers who were with Bob on the night he died, plus an official investigation that’s going nowhere fast. And also granted, in traditional cozy whodunits the stumbling block is generally a fiendishly clever killer who’s always one step ahead of the police rather than institutional apathy rooted in casual prejudice, but the framework is in place nonetheless. There’s even a sneaky little joke that alludes to the killer’s identity concealed in the first chapter, one so oblique and dependent on noticing a bit of non-English language slang that it’s invisible except with the benefit of hindsight.

Tom, a tabloid journalist who doesn’t like the official attitude one bit, launches his own inquiry with unofficial help from two men, each with his own personal and professional agenda. Cris—short for Crispus, not Christopher—Taylor was once Bob’s lover and, as a gay, African-American cop, has seen just another dead homo/junkie/negro syndrome consign plenty of investigations to a lick and a promise status. Officially he’s on the vice squad, not in homicide, but he has access to departmental files and is willing to invest his free time in helping Tom search for Bob’s murderer; Tom scores some getting to know you points for knowing the mixed-race Crispus Attucks is generally considered the first casualty of the Revolutionary War. Rudolph Birndl, aka Raunchy Rudy, the Prurient Prussian, was Bob’s publisher and pimps all five suspects on the side. He liked Bob, but he also likes the big sales bump that some splashy news coverage could give Bob’s backlist catalogue—even if it means that one of his boys winds up in prison.

Though Night of the Sadist’s title probably owes nothing to the ‘60s garage-band single of the same name by Fort Worth, Texas-based Larry and the Blue Notes, the novel is deeply indebted to a gay porn subgenre that revolves around the twilight world of male prostitutes, from John Rechy’s grim, expose style City of Night (1963) to Samuel Steward’s cheeky Phil Andros novels (1966-1991). And Rudy’s rent boys cover the something-for-everyone waterfront: Cross-dressing femme Allan/Elaine; prodigiously endowed Johnathon; chubby little masochist Ron; butch-yet-soulful Gerry and self-hating urban cowboy Tex. And Laurie—no fool he—slyly exploits the fact that hustlers are a pornographer’s best friend; they’re the go-to guys when you need to keep the dirty bits coming at regular intervals because sex is what they do—the very word pornography derives from the Greek pornographia—writing about prostitutes.

And yet Laurie also imbues each with a measure of individuality through character-defining glimpses beneath their professional facades: the diminished fairy-tale dreams that underlie the nellie-go-lightly persona affected by Allan, an aging twink disowned by his wealthy family; perpetual bottom Ron’s delight at getting a chance to top; Tex’s corrosive inability to admit that he’s not gay-for-pay but just plain gay; Johnathon’s bitter resignation to being treated as a life-support system for his circus cock and Gerry’s wounded, restless discontent with the life he drifted into and can’t muster the resolve to leave.

Tom Maxon is Laurie’s narrative-driving stance in action; when he’s not looking for clues in the manuscript of Bob’s last novel—an ambitious exploration of madness purchased by a respectable East Coast publishing house shortly before his death—Tom is fraternizing with the suspects, trying to see behind their facades in the hope of glimpsing the seething rage that drove one to murder a man who spent his last hours treating them to a lavish night on the town, a thank you for their willingness to share thoughts, memories and small personal revelations no john’s money could have bought. And of course—given the mores of adult fiction—Tom has some good, dirty fun screwing his way to the truth about his brother’s murder; as far as he’s concerned, the fastest route to information about the circumstances of his brother’s life lies between the sheets.

The nature of this gay fictional community of hustlers is surprisingly convivial, one in which for all the inevitable competition for, the working boys with whom Tom consorts all get along pretty well and most have a sense of personal integrity within the context of their profession. With the exception of the maudlin, Tex—whose self-delusion is an issue with which he’s not yet ready to deal—they’re not junkies or drunks, unable to make rational decisions. Most don’t want to hustle forever: Alan/Elaine dreams of marrying well and becoming a stay-at-home partner—marriage in this case, of course,