I recently found out about The Bell in the Fog, the second tome to the Lavender House series (of which I enjoyed book 1). Set a few months after the first tome, it has (slightly) fewer police beatings of gay men and (much) more gruesome deaths.

It's pretty good, in other words.

This one isn't a whodunnit as much as the previous one, although the basic premise is similar: a body is found, I wonder who it is, oh no blackmail, being gay is dangerous, I have restored justice yay. But this time, instead of being in a mansion of the Bay Area with one wealthy family, we discover the gay San Francisco and the adventures of a handful of queer ex-soldiers in a pre-Lavender scare military.

This more open setting really helped me find my footing in the novel and I enjoyed it much more than Lavender House, which was already pretty good.