Lethally Married

DEATH VOWS

By Richard Stevenson

MLR Press. 198 pp. $14.99

SCHOOLED IN MURDER

By Mark Richard Zubro

St. Martin's/Minotaur. 294 pp. $25.95

The author of the Donald Strachey mystery series uses a pseudonym. Richard Stevenson is not his real name. In fact, almost nobody connected to Stevenson's new novel, forthcoming late next month, is who he claims to be. While the author -- in real life, Book World mystery columnist Richard Lipez -- has nothing nefarious to hide, his scheming characters can't make the same claim. They change names, cover up embarrassing pasts, lie to friends.

None of this would matter, of course, if not for the murder.

As "Death Vows" opens, Strachey, a hard-boiled detective in Albany, N.Y., is enlisted to investigate the mysterious Barry Fields, who may or may not be a violent con man and gold digger, preparing to marry an older man named Bill Moore just over the Massachusetts state line in the Berkshires. (If, in fact, those are their real names. Which they're not.) The investigation gets complicated when someone kills Strachey's client, sleazy busybody Jim Sturdivant. (Yes, that's technically his real name, but it hides more than it reveals about his past.)

Fingers quickly point at young Fields, but Strachey isn't convinced. Motives abound for numerous residents of this small town: love, sex, money, politics and, of course, those secrets that need to stay secret at any cost. "Is Great Barrington the liars' capital of the Northeast," Strachey wonders aloud, "or what's the damn deal, anyway?" It's never a good sign when, among a detective's interview subjects, mobsters are the only straight shooters. So to speak.

This is Stevenson's ninth Donald Strachey novel, and his deliciously clipped style makes room for character and a heavy helping of humor without sacrificing pacing. The author is particularly adept at using snippets of rapid-fire dialogue to establish characters' personalities, which tend toward the sarcastic. When a suspect tries to rattle Strachey by telling him, "Our friend said you used to look something like Tom Selleck but that you had outgrown that look," Strachey strikes back: "It's funny how that works. It happened to Tom Selleck too." Then he adds, "If fifty is the new Prague, I'm somewhere between Budapest and Dubrovnik." There are plenty more zingers, but the language gets too salty to reprint here.

Four years after same-sex marriage became legal in Massachusetts, Stevenson explores the darker implications of uttering the vow "till death do us part." For instance, a closeted couple might live together informally with some privacy, but marriages are public record, something that could provoke violent reactions from an intolerant sibling or small-minded, um, business associate. A young man might find himself penniless if his casual boyfriend should, say, die of unnatural causes before he makes a will; the same young man could inherit all of his husband's possessions if they legally wed before some "accident" happens.

There's only one couple in "Death Vows" whose connection is honest, public and lacking ulterior motives: Strachey and his partner, Timothy Callahan. He serves as Strachey's sounding board, support system and confidant. He doesn't let Strachey get away with anything, matching him quip for quip, same as any good partner. But since they live in New York, they can't get married. If that changes, Stevenson will surely write about it, with the snappiest wedding vows you've ever heard.

Marriage isn't a major motif in Mark Richard Zubro's "Schooled in Murder": The author tackled that subject earlier in this "Tom and Scott" mystery series, when amateur sleuth Tom Mason finally tied the knot with his beau, former baseball pro Scott Carpenter. (A murder put a damper on the ceremony, but that is, literally, another story: Zubro's 2002 novel, "Here Comes the Corpse.") Nonetheless, as in "Death Vows," partnership again proves essential.

"Schooled in Murder" focuses on a high school outside Chicago, where acrimony between teachers and administrators leads to two murders. Mason, an English teacher and union rep, tries to uncover who's behind the killings, but soon finds himself a prime suspect and, perhaps, the next victim.

While he's penned a dozen "Tom and Scott" books and nine "Paul Turner Mysteries," Zubro was also an English teacher in Illinois for 34 years and a union president for 20, before retiring in 2006. So he knows the intricate politics of school administrations: minor policy disputes that become petty wars, meddling administrators wielding undue influence, torrid affairs between staff members. But what's more interesting here than the workplace shenanigans, the murders or even the covert sexual liaisons that involve so many educators -- male and female, married and single, gay and straight -- is Mason himself.

Mason relies on his partner for refuge, perspective and emotional support. He has a lot to deal with beside the normal stresses of teaching: homophobia from backstabbing colleagues, deception by those he trusts and the threat of physical violence. He couldn't get through it alone. The murders may drive the book's action, but the affection between Tom and Scott gives "Schooled in Murder" the heart that makes Zubro's tales so human.

Both Stevenson and Zubro put couples at the center of their narratives. But these aren't traditional crime-solving duos, like Batman and Robin or even "Hart to Hart." These are a different kind of partnership. True, only one man in each book actually solves the mysteries. But without the other man lending support at home, each sleuth would be as good as dead.