Murder at Union Station (Mason Adler Mystery, #1)

by David S Pederson

[annieb123]

Originally posted on my blog Nonstop Reader.

Murder at Union Station is a light noir PI mystery and the second book featuring gumshoe Mason Adler by David S. Pederson. Released 13th Sept 2022 by Bold Strokes Books, it's 226 pages and is available in paperback and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links and references throughout. I've really become enamored of ebooks with interactive formats lately. 

This is a nice PI mystery with a set of returning characters including gay private investigator Mason Adler, his neighbor and friend Lydia, and their wider social circle. It's set in 1946 and it really reads like a novel written contemporaneously. It's quite good with regard to pacing and dialogue. It definitely could have been written in the years after the second world war and decades before Stonewall. Many of the characters are homosexual, and in or out of their respective closets in a time when there were real risks involved in living as a gay person in the USA. Main protagonist Mason is a successful PI and something of a loner in his private life, although he has a circle of friends and a steady platonic relationship with Lydia with whom he enjoys outings to films and the occasional dinner date. 

The plotting is somewhat uneven. The storytelling also suffers a bit from the descriptive style being primarily "telling and not showing". The characterizations are, however, quite well done and sympathetically rendered. It's a net positive however, and the book happily doesn't suffer from the "sophomore slump" of second-book syndrome. The plot and mystery work well as a standalone, but both extant stories are quite good and it would make a nice choice for a short weekend binge or buddy read.

The discovery of a body in the baggage area of a large railway station (in the heat of summer in Phoenix, Az) draws local law enforcement, and later, Mason into solving the mystery. The presentation of the clues necessary to the solution are not always according to "fair play" rules... but I found the main character and the atmosphere compelling and well done. 

It reminds me in a lot of complimentary ways of other golden age "gotcha" mysteries by E.C.R. Lorac and Cornell Woolrich. Fans of offbeat noir American PI mysteries who don't mind the more sordid aspects (lots of smoking and drinking, anti-homosexuality laws and threatened violence, etc) will probably enjoy this one. 

Four stars. Intriguing.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.