Listen With Lillian - Nick Williams Mystery series by Frank W Butterfield

The Unexpected Heiress by Frank W Butterfield (Nick Williams Mystery Book 1) & The Amorous Attorney by Frank W Butterfield (Nick Williams Mystery Book 2)

Narrated by Brian Rollins

Buy Links: The Unexpected Heiress // The Amorous Attorney

My Two Pennies' Worth

These are the first two books in the Nick Williams Mysteries series. Set in 1950s San Francisco this is like a gay version of Perry Mason or Nero Wolfe, you can almost imagine it in black and white. Nick is a PI with a firefighter ‘husband’, Carter, and they live together in a small house (despite Nick being rich as Rockefeller). This is one of those ‘everybody’s gay’ stories, but it makes sense that a couple in a relationship would surround themselves with like-minded people where they would be able to be themselves. What this does mean is that the stories are written with an excellent sense of community. Nick is a champion for the cause, and a bit of a cupid. He and Carter are still friends with all their exes, and they make up part of their group of friends.

The story is told purely from Nick’s POV. He is forthright, as only someone with money can be. He doesn’t always consider the impact of his actions on others, but when things go wrong, especially through his actions, he will try to put things right.

Despite the era in which this is set being fraught for gay people, with the moral code in Hollywood and the McCarthy witch-hunts, this book has a lot of humour too. The mysteries in the two books both involve murder and blackmail, so there is some dark drama in the subject matter. (Seriously, don’t get too invested in some of the side characters, you never know who’s going to be snuffed out next. I got upset about one of the characters that have died so far.) But Nick is sharp and witty, and a little bitchy in his internal thoughts.

I thought the sense of place and period were really well done, although not knowing the layout of San Francisco at all, some of the directions were overdone for me, but I can see how they would appeal to someone familiar with the area.

Book two followed on immediately from the first, picking the timeline up from where the first finished, each covering one or two weeks. The main murder plots are wrapped up in each book but not everything in the background is resolved, and those threads are carried on to the next book.

This was the audiobook that I listened to. The narrator was excellent and was able to impart life into the story and charm into Nick’s telling of it.

I thoroughly enjoyed both these books and I’m looking forward to reading the rest of the series.