Crime Ink: Iconic: An Anthology of Crime Fiction Inspired by Queer Icons by John Copenhaver and Salem West
To not read this anthology … well, it would be criminal.
There have been some excellent novels published in the last several years looking at historical crime fiction through a queer lens — books set in 1950s Los Angeles, 1950s Washington, D.C., 1828 Edinburgh, 1866 Paris, an English manor house in 1899, the dockyards of Tacoma, Washington, in 1888.
What we haven’t seen much of, however, are the corresponding short stories. In 2023, a study of 30 major crime fiction anthologies revealed that of the 517 stories contained in them, fewer than one percent were written by LGBTQ+ authors. A startling statistic, right? Especially when you consider that the soul of crime fiction rests in its outsiders — those many consider out of the mainstream, but who fiercely battle the same ethical and moral dilemmas.
Crime Ink intends to do something about that. Crime Ink: Iconic, taking queer icons as its theme, is the first in a projected LGBTQ+ series filled to the brim with an incredibly diverse range of genres — to quote the editors, John Copenhaver and Salem West, “hard-boiled, PI., amateur sleuth, noir, police procedural, legal thriller, psychological suspense, historical, cozy, domestic, puzzle mystery — even speculative crossovers.”
In Mia P. Manasala’s “Never Meet Your Heroes,” a young cosplayer at a comic convention finds the title to be all too true. In Christa Faust’s “Hollywood Prometheus,” a coroner’s assistant in 1952 solves the murder of a teenage boy, but it isn’t exactly a Hollywood ending. In Robyn Gigl’s “Invisible,” the murder of a trans cop holds all kinds of surprises. In David S. Pederson’s “Wilde About Murder,” the complicated history of a college Oscar Wilde club makes for a fatal reunion (“True friends,” Wilde once noted, “stab you in the front.”).
The owner of a down-market queer bar in Kristen Lepionka’s “Lipstick, Grenadine, or Blood” tells us, “Usually the biggest problems we face are bad tips and worse dancing. That is, until the body on the floor.” A party girl in Marco Carocari’s “Notes on How to be Iconic” finally achieves her goal of becoming an icon, though for all the wrong reasons. A mission to the moon in Diana DiGangi’s “Victory or Death” hums along with its two-woman crew and AI control system ALICE, until one of them goes haywire (it’s not the one you think). A one-time basketball player, now coroner’s investigator, regards the bludgeoned body of a hotshot WNBA rookie in her own locker room in Meredith Doench’s “Bladed” … but the ball is in her hands now and the clock is running out.
Ellen Hart, Katherine V. Forrest, Katrina Carrasco, Margot Douaihy, Greg Herren, John Copenhaver, Cheryl Head, Christopher Bollen — the names fly by, to wildly entertaining results. To not read this anthology … well, it would be criminal.
About the Editors:
John Copenhaver is an award-winning author whose latest novel, Hall of Mirrors, was selected as a New York Times Crime Novel of the Year and won the Left Coast Crime Award for Best Historical Mystery. His debut, Dodging and Burning, won the Macavity Award, and The Savage Kind earned the Lambda Literary Award. A founding member of Queer Crime Writers, he teaches at Virginia Commonwealth University, mentors in the University of Nebraska MFA program, and lives in Richmond, VA.
Salem West is the publisher of Bywater Books. She brings a strong background in business management and a longstanding engagement with the LGBT community. In recent years, she has become known as the voice of The Rainbow Reader, a highly successful review blog that combines original essays with insightful analysis of all genres of LGBT literature. She is a member of the Board of Trustees of Lambda Literary, is active in the lesbian literary community and is a sought-after facilitator for groups, panels and events focusing on feminist and lesbian literature. West and her wife, Bywater author Ann McMan, collaborated on the novel Hoosier Daddy, which was a Lambda Literary Award Finalist in 2014.
Featured Authors:
Ann Aptaker, Ann McMan, Cheryl Head, Meredith Doench, Kelly J. Ford, Margot Douaihy, Christa Faust, Robyn Gigl, Jeffrey Marks, Greg Herren, Anne Laughlin, Kristen Lepionka, Katrina Carrasco, Mia Manansala, Renee James, Penny Mickelbury, Diana DiGangi, Baxter Clare Trautman, JM Redmann, Ellen Hart, Katherine V. Forrest, Stephanie Gayle, Marco Carocari, Jeffrey Round and David Pederson.
Publish Date: 9/2/2025
Genre: Fiction, Mystery, Science Fiction
Author: John Copenhaver and Salem West
Page Count: 400 pages
Publisher: Bywater Books
ISBN: 9781612943251