Death Claims

A Dave Branstetter Mystery

By: Joseph Hansen

Narrated by: Keith Szarabajka

Length: 5 hrs and 32 mins

Publisher's summary

Death Claims is the second in Joseph Hansen's acclaimed mystery series featuring the ruggedly masculine Dave Brandstetter, a gay insurance investigator.

When John Oats' body is found washed up on a beach, his young lover April Stannard is sure it was no accident. Brandstetter agrees: Oats's college-age son, the beneficiary of the life insurance policy, has gone missing.

©1973 Joseph Hansen; © 2013 by David G. Coe (P)2019 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Perfection!!! Awesome series!

Perfect narration and awesome writing don’t explain the lack of a cover picture. The narration for this series is in my top 5. I can’t wait for book 3 and the rest of this series due out this year. Simply delicious reading!!!

These books need to be “read”

I enjoy murder mysteries. I am so happy I came across the Dave B series. It is a departure from royal books.

Excellent story, great riding and fantastic characters.

I had only read the later Dave Brandstetter novels, and was thrilled to get find the series as audiobooks. Joseph Hansen writing is excellent better than most contemporary authors authors of gay fiction . He doesn’t waste language, he “shows” rather than “tells”.

The only negative I would say is in the narration. Female voices did not come out very well. April is supposed to be 24 years old, but her gravelly voice sounds like that of an elderly smoker.

Nevertheless it is a very worthwhile lesson.

Enjoyable Mystery!

_Death Claims_ by Joesph Hanson receives 4 stars from me. I enjoy the plot-driven text and the small bits of character development of the story.

The reader for this audio version was Keith Szarabajka. His raspy voice is great for mysteries. I also enjoy his interpretation of the characters. I listened to the first of the Dave Branstetter Mysteries also read by Szarabajka. I think he does a better job in this book than the first.

The plot is very straight forward. Branstetter goes person to person interviewing them to discover the truth. I like that Branstetter isn't a policeman. Being an insurance investigator adds to the tension. And surprisingly, in a modern world, this helps me get into the mystery without wondering about DNA, or trace evidence, or the like. No, it's Branstetter has an idea and just follows the trails until the truth is revealed. There is more on gay life, but not as much as the first book in the series. This one had some but not as much.

Recommended: yeah, I think so. It is short and can be read in a few hours, or listened to a lazy day at home.

To the end

What a good book. No one idea who did it until the end. All mixed up.

I am thrilled to have found this series...

I often search by narrator and have discovered some hidden gems. This is one of them. Keith Szarabajka is one of the best narrators out there with his pitch-perfect vocal talents. Add this to the intricate and highly creative talents of author Joseph Hanson and we have a complex book. Set in the 1970s, insurance investigator Brandsetter sets out to unravel a suspicious insurance claim. Surprises, twists and turns ensue. I thoroughly enjoyed this fast-paced and interesting book and I look forward to more in this this series. Thank you to Audible for adding this one to its Audible Plus catalogue at no cost. Highly recommended.

Meh

Sadly, unlike the first book, I never became invested in any of the characters (except a moderate interest in Brandstetter himself) so it fell a but flat for me. I'm not a big murder mystery genre fan overall so I need a little more in my story to feel engaged.

B O R I N G

I think the title to my review says it all. Sad too, because I really enjoyed the first book. Guess I had my hopes set a bit high. Can’t finish this one. Jumps around too much. Boring and hard to keep up with. Oh well, it WAS “free” at least. NEXT PLEASE….

Ok

Second book I’ve listened to from this author. First I love the narrator. Even though part he kinda messed up the Mexican & Chinese characters but his voice is great. But…this book dragged on & on, kinda like this review! Too many characters. I did however like the protagonist storyline & hope it works out for Brandstetter & Doug. I’ll still listen to the next book because it’s free.

Not for everyone

If it seems odd that I'm giving this audiobook four stars for story, five for performance, but only two overall, I confess that it feels odd to me as well. The performance is flawless; Keith Szarabajka captures the grittiness of the atmosphere perfectly (it helps that it sounds like he's been chain smoking for thirty years straight). The four stars for the story is because the book is so beautifully written and the mystery is well crafted. Structurally, the book is miles ahead of most modern "gay" mysteries, because it's barely at all about the protagonist's sex life and 95% about the mystery itself, which is refreshing.

And yet. Let me preface this section by asserting that I am no Social Justice Warrior. In fact I usually rail against the clumsy progressive slant of modern m/m literature. Gay people have it pretty good today (I should know, being one myself) and there's always way too much drama centered around being gay in gay fiction, fetishizing victimhood in a generally eyeroll-inducing way that sets my teeth on edge. But even I am forced to admit that this book--the series in general, or at least the two books of it I've read--is legitimately HORRIBLE to its gay characters. Without any major spoilers, let me just assert that at least for the first two books, not a single gay character--including the protagonist--can catch a break, their stories ending in heartbreak AT BEST, and violent, ignominious death at worst. It's a relic from a time when gay characters were allowed to exist in books and on film, but only with the understanding that they would meet a sad fate by the end of the last page/reel.

I do try to keep an open mind about judging works of art by the standards of their own time, and not ours. And I don't necessarily need a happy ending in a book, but the fact is that what happens to the gay characters--ALL of them--in the first two books of the series is so bleak I actually came away from the endings in an irritable mood. Well, stop the ride, I want to get off. I'm not subjecting myself to any more Brandstetter mysteries, and I don't give two craps if that makes me some sort of mystery fan lightweight.

I'll close by saying that it doesn't have to be like this. E.M. Forster's "Maurice" is an example of early gay fiction that ends on a hopeful note. The dedication in Forster's (unpublished) novel reads "To a happier year." I firmly believe that happier year has arrived, but, apparently, it came well after the early 70's when this was written.