WRITING THE NICKY AND NOAH MYSTERIES
Book Seven: Drama Castle
by Joe Cosentino
While visiting Scotland, my spouse and I had the incredible experience of staying in a real castle. When I say “castle,” I don’t only mean a beautiful hotel. I’m talking about a bridge over a moat leading to a sprawling stone structure from the 1700’s with turrets, fireplaces, knight in armor, and coat of arms. The Great Hall (dining room) inside was full of wait staff serving us the most delectable meals we had ever eaten. Our room included an enormous canopy bed, stone fireplace, a wardrobe out of C.S. Lewis, a turreted window seat, burgundy curtains, and leather chairs (no pun intended). From our enormous windows, we could see a turquoise lake swirling through an emerald-green meadow, a steep cliff towering over the white-capped ocean, and violet fields of heather. We truly felt like the lords of the castle! It didn’t take long for me to realize I had to set the seventh Nicky and Noah mystery in a Scottish castle.
For those of you who haven’t yet been baptized in Nicky and Noah land, the Nicky and Noah mysteries is a gay cozy mystery comedy series, meaning the setting is warm and cozy, the clues and murders (and laughs) come fast and furious, and there are enough plot twists and turns and a surprise ending to keep the pages turning faster than a priest going to altar boy orientation. At the center is the touching relationship between Associate Professor of Directing Nicky Abbondanza and Assistant Professor of Acting Noah Oliver. We watch them go from courting to marrying to adopting a child, all the while head over heels in love with each other (as we fall in love with them). Reviewers called the series hysterically funny farce, Murder She Wrote meets Hart to Hart meets The Hardy Boys, and captivating whodunits. One reviewer wrote they are the funniest books she’s ever read!
In Drama Queen (Divine Magazine’s Readers’ Choice Award for Favorite LGBT Mystery, Humorous, and Contemporary Novel of the Year) Nicky directs the school play at Treemeadow College—which is named after its gay founders, Tree and Meadow. Theatre professors drops like stage curtains, and Nicky and Noah have to use their theatre skills, including impersonating other people, to figure out whodunit. In Drama Muscle (Rainbow Award Honorable Mention) Nicky and Noah don their gay Holmes and Watson personas again to find out why bodybuilding students and professors in Nicky’s bodybuilding competition at Treemeadow are dropping faster than barbells. In Drama Cruise it is summer on a ten-day cruise from San Francisco to Alaska and back. Nicky and Noah must figure out why college theatre professors are dropping like life rafts as Nicky directs a murder mystery dinner theatre show onboard ship starring Noah and other college theatre professors from across the US. Complicating matters are their both sets of wacky parents who want to embark on all the activities on and off the boat with the handsome couple. In Drama Luau, Nicky is directing the luau show at the Maui Mist Resort and he and Noah need to figure out why muscular Hawaiian hula dancers are dropping like grass skirts. Their department head/best friend and his husband, Martin and Ruben, are along for the bumpy tropical ride. In Drama Detective, Nicky is directing and ultimately co-starring with his husband Noah as Holmes and Watson in a new musical Sherlock Holmes play at Treemeadow College prior to Broadway. Martin and Ruben, their sassy office assistant Shayla, Nicky’s brother Tony, and Nicky and Noah’s son Taavi are also in the cast. Of course dead bodies begin falling over like hammy actors at a curtain call. Once again Nicky and Noah use their drama skills to figure out who is lowering the street lamps on the actors before the handsome couple get half-baked on Baker Street. In Drama Fraternity, Nicky is directing Tight End Scream Queen, a slasher movie filmed at Treemeadow College’s football fraternity house, co-starring Noah, Taavi, and Martin. Rounding out the cast are members of Treemeadow’s Christian football players’ fraternity along with two hunky screen stars. When the jammer, wide receiver, and more begin fading out with their scenes, Nicky and Noah once again need to use their drama skills to figure out who is sending young hunky actors to the cutting room floor before Nicky and Noah hit the final reel.
