Balls & Chain
by Eric Andrews-Katz
Bold Strokes Books
978-1-62639-218-2
225 pages, paperback, $18
Imagine, if you will, a world where Miguel Reyes—the first Latino and openly gay governor of Florida—is poised to enact Referendum 65, a statewide referendum that will make Florida the first Southern state to have full marriage equality. However, when Alejandro Reyes (Miguel's fourteen-year-old son) is kidnapped, his abductors deliver the following ultimatum: either Miguel kills R65, or they will kill Alejandro. Simultaneously, and suspiciously, Alejandro's tutor disappears, and an anti-gay minister begins leading protests against the governor. Into this fray enters Agent Buck 98 from an undisclosed government agency: snarky, irreverent, and very queer, Agent Buck has only a week to locate and rescue Alejandro, and bring his kidnappers to justice.
Such is the premise behind Balls & Chain by Eric Andrews-Katz, the second Buck 98 Adventure, and sequel to The Jesus Injection. Agent Buck is joined by his agency rival Agent 46 (the equally snarky Noxia von Tüssëll), their superior Agent Muffin 69, and a host of eccentric new characters: Phynilla Jackson, the governor's executive assistant, with a tongue as sharp as Agent Buck's; the rifle-wielding Countess Margareta and her three yapping dogs; and the handsome security guard Benjamin Dover. Readers are not required to have earlier knowledge of the first Buck 98 Adventure in order to enjoy Balls & Chain; nevertheless, readers of both will appreciate the character development, especially in some interesting revelations concerning Agent 46's backstory.
Andrews-Katz keeps the action speeding merrily along, whether Agent Buck 98 is hunting for Alejandro, escaping death-traps, enjoying various techno-gadgets, trading bon mots with everybody, or seducing Benjamin, all in the best tradition of James Bond (albeit a queer James Bond). Andrews-Katz is actually more the literary descendant of Mabel Maney than Ian Fleming; Maney, with her Case of the Not-So-Nice Nurse and subsequent sequels during the 1990s, parodied 1950's juvenile detective fiction heroines Nancy Drew and Cherry Ames, to hilarious effect. (And everyone in her stories was gay, except for Ames' parents and the villains.)
It is rare for a novel to be nearly upstaged by current events, but that is indeed the case with Balls & Chain: this novel anticipates the striking down of Florida's 2008 marriage amendment by a federal judge this past August, which has nearly made its premise obsolete; not that Andrews-Katz had any way of knowing that the momentum of the marriage equality movement would do so (and potentially could do very quickly) while he was writing his novel, or while it was in production.
One might be tempted to write off this Buck 98 Adventure as pure escapist fluff (again, in the very best tradition of James Bond), but occasionally Agent Buck reveals that he is more than an Oscar Wilde wannabe: for example, when he questions Benjamin about why he remains closeted, even though he works for an out governor. So never mind that any secret agent who acted like Agent Buck 98 (especially to his supervisor) would be drummed out of whatever unnamed governmental intelligence agency he works at for insubordination: readers should not let this or other “lapses” impede their enjoyment of the novel; just as Agent Buck 98 takes nothing seriously, neither should they.
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Keith Glaeske is a medievalist and collector of speculative fiction currently living in Washington, DC. His articles about medieval literature have been published in Medieval Perspectives, Traditio, and Ériu. He regularly reviews books for Chelsea Station, Lambda Literary Review, and other sites.
