This was another terrific story by the wonderful Jordan Castillo Price. Her Psy-Cop series is one of my favorites.
The story begins with Mark, a 40 something snarky, aging gay clothes hound, who is the personal assistant to Jonathan. Jonathan is a V+pos. All of society is now separated by 2 catagories "v-neg or v+pos". V+pos being the highly contagious Vampire virus that is 85% fatal. It defines every single detail of society now. V+pos persons are treated as pariah, and every one wears gloves outside their own homes for fear of contagion. In many ways V+pos is reminiscent mixing of the old "jim crow" laws with a mixture of the societal hysteria during the first days of HIV/aids. IE: separate bathrooms, separate sections of public places, and special disposable gloves for everyone.
Mark goes about his days running the personal errands, securing the blood, and liaison for business matters for Jonathan, who is quiet, shy, eccentric and paints giant solid black works of art. (It turns out that V+pos people can acually see colors in the art).
This very dull and predictable life all gets sent careening out of control with the appearance of a very powerful eastern european mobster who is after Jonathan. Jonathan has been hiding in plain site in NYC for many years, thinking Laslo wants to kill him for infecting him with V.
As the 2 men run for their lives in a pretty tense game of cat and mouse, history, circumstances and the real truth of Jonathan’s past unfold, all the while providing an environment of closeness that allows the men to slowly reveal their mutual feelings for each other.
This story was enjoyable on many levels, Its different!! Its has a somber serious disease at the forefront, but Mark is a sarcastic, super funny protaganist who infuses humor into the story. There are some very sweet tender moments between Mark and Jonathan that are very Hot without a single touch or mention of sex. And it is slowly, slowly revealed that each has been suffering silent unrequited feelings for a long time.
Joel Leslie is a king of narration. His skills are brilliant as always. Any book he narrates is pretty much an auto buy for me, even an unknown author or genre. He breathes colorful, vibrant life into the characters of any story he performs. One of my favorite narrators.