Body Language

michael craft

A midlife crisis sends Chicago Journal reporter Mark Manning back to his Wisconsin hometown—and into a morass of lust, lies, and lethal family secrets

An unexpected windfall has given burned-out Chicago journalist Mark Manning the chance to reconnect with his boyhood roots. With the blessing of his lover, Neil, he leaves the Windy City to return to Dumont, Wisconsin, to take over the town paper. His long-awaited family reunion is cut short when his cousin Suzanne is bludgeoned to death just before Christmas dinner. Before she dies, she whispers something to Manning: the name of her son.

Was she expressing a mother’s dying wish for the future welfare of her child? Or revealing the identity of her murderer? When Manning ends up in the local law’s sights, he’s suddenly racing against time to clear his own name and smoke out a killer. With no lack of suspects, from a troubled homophobe to a lesbian activist to a housekeeper, the clock is ticking on a story that could be the biggest of Manning’s career—if he lives long enough to write it.

Body Language is the third book in Michael Craft’s Mark Manning series, which begins with Flight Dreams and Eye Contact.

Genres mysterylgbtfictiongaygay fictionmystery thrillerm m romance

273 pages, Paperback

First published June 1,1999

Series

Mark Manning Mystery

This edition

Format: 273 pages, Paperback
Published: January 1, 2000 by Kensington Pub Corp
ISBN: 9781575665542
ASIN: 1575665549
Language: English

About the author

michael craft

Michael Craft is the author of 20 published novels, four of which have been honored as finalists for Lambda Literary Awards. The first installment of his Dante & Jazz series, "Desert Getaway," was a 2023 MWA Edgars nominee for the Lilian Jackson Braun Award. The second installment, "Desert Deadline," was a Gold Winner of the IBPA Benjamin Franklin Award, as was his 2019 mystery, "ChoirMaster." In addition, his prize-winning short fiction has appeared in British as well as American literary journals. Craft grew up in Illinois and spent his middle years in Wisconsin, which inspired the fictitious small-town setting of Dumont, used in many of his earlier books. He holds an MFA in creative writing from Antioch University, Los Angeles, and now lives in Rancho Mirage, California, near Palm Springs, the setting of his current Dante & Jazz mystery series. In 2017, Michael Craft's professional archives were acquired by the Special Collections Department of the Rivera Library at the University of California, Riverside. Visit the author's website at www.michaelcraft.com.