Lambda Literary Award for Best LGBTQ Mystery. He cohosts on the House of Mystery Radio Show, is the six-time recipient of Artist Fellowships from the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities, and for years, wrote a crime fiction review column for Lambda Literary called “Blacklight.”
[The Page 69 Test: The Savage Kind; My Book, The Movie: The Savage Kind]
Copenhaver teaches fiction writing and literature at Virginia Commonwealth University and is a faculty mentor in the University of Nebraska’s Low-Residency MFA program.
His new novel is Hall of Mirrors.
At Electric Lit Copenhaver tagged thirteen novels by queer writers with queer characters and "speak to the history of queer mysteries and thrillers, tell us something about crime fiction today, and of course, because they are great books." One title on the list:
Bath Haus by P. J. VernonRead about the other entries on the list.
One of the most commercially successful queer thrillers in recent years, Vernon’s Bath Haus, explores the dark side of contemporary gay relationships. OliverPark has everything that should make him happy: his partner, Nathan, a handsome, attentive, and wealthy trauma surgeon; a sprawling townhouse in Washington, D.C.; and, after years of struggling with addiction, his sobriety. So, when he seeks out anonymous sex at a local bathhouse and nearly dies at the hands of his hook-up partner, his life begins to unravel in dangerous and unsettling ways. This novel struck a nerve in part because of its titillating subject matter, in part because of its clever twists, and in part because of its complicated and sympathetic central character, a flawed queer man fighting for agency in his life.
Bath Haus is among Leah Konen's five top thrillers about secrets between spouses and S.F. Kosa's ten best psychological thrillers.
--Marshal Zeringue