Gray Gaynes: Gray Tones & Gray Area

Recently, more and more authors are turning to self-publishing. Whether this is effective is not a conversation I’m qualified to have, but it has opened the door to more classically-oriented (i.e. “good”) mystery novels that publishing houses tend to ignore. However, in many cases these novels are rife with editing boo-boos and questionable characterization, so it can take some effort to uncover the hidden gems.

Fellow blogger (and author himself) Jim Noy has already done the hard work by finding these gems, giving them valuable exposure for mystery readers. But we’re not taking about those gems today. We’re talking GRAY GAYNES, BABY

I randomly stumbled upon this series in a West Virginian art market, and something about the ridiculously gritty covers and author R. L. Akers’s fascination with putting “gray” in every title really spoke to me. I read the first three chapters on his website and couldn’t get it out of my head. I had to know if I’d discovered an unknown genius. Had I? Well…

Naturally, the Gray Gaynes books star Gray Gaynes, a New York cop returning to work after the unsolved death of his wife, which he still hasn’t solved…While this premise may sound like half the thrillers released in the last decade, Akers puts a twist on it that’s somewhat interesting. For some reason he doesn’t specify this twist in any promotional material, leaving it as a surprise reveal at the end of the first book, but I’m going to come out with it because he’s just burying the lede by doing that. You see, Gray was also attacked by his wife’s murderer, leaving him day blind, face blind…and color blind. So we’ve got a noir-ish detective who sees the world in black and white.

Is that a little goofy? Sure. Would these exact symptoms actually get caused by a blow to the head? Almost certainly not. Is black and white color blindness even real? Actually it is, surprisingly. But either way, I’m willing to buy all this because it’s not merely a gimmick thrown onto the detective. It has a clear, drastic effect on his life. And in a further twist, Gray is hiding his visual impairments from the force, because he doesn’t want to get fired before he can find his wife’s killer.

Again, surely the force would have received his medical records after the accident, but I don’t really care. Seeing how Gray adapts to his new situation is really interesting. After all, how can a detective find a suspect when he can’t recognize faces? How can he get around avoiding sunlight? And Gray’s color blindness leads to a great opening shot in his first adventure…

Gray Tones: The Case of the Elevator Slaying opens with two bodies in an elevator and walls bathed in crimson, all missing its hue to Gray. The story then moves at a swift pace as Gray sees video footage of a man killing the elderly couple (his neighbors) and fleeing the elevator covered in blood.

Gray suspects the case is open and shut but obviously the viewers suspect something more is going on here, leading to a somewhat unique puzzle. How could anyone else have killed the victims when the murder is on film? As the plot continues, even while we suspect something is wrong, Akers builds the case around the suspect tighter and tighter.

I honestly thought the solution was clever, though a bit reliant on coincidence. It seemed like something out of a Paul Halter short story. The motive was especially inspired, though the whole thing is rather easy to figure out. Still, the fact all the clues are there is great to see nowadays, and I’m glad Akers is going for an elegant solution over sheer spectacle.

The book is short, probably around 100 pages, making it great to breeze through in a day. Akers’ style flows well and lends itself to quick reading. Certain chapters actually approach horror, with others feeling truly emotional and loaded with subtext. I also like how Akers doesn’t dump Gray’s entire backstory on us, instead letting us theorize about the reason behind his strange choices until the end.

However, Gray doesn’t come away from this looking that smart. He only solves the case because he doesn’t want to stay outside—not because of noticing some subtle detail at the scene. The other characters aren’t developed well either. The story’s just too short for that. The culprit is fine, I suppose, but the suspect in particular feels like a missed opportunity, not even appearing a single time in the narrative. While I respect the book for not overstaying its welcome, it could do with a little more as well.

(As an aside, one of the nicest touches Akers puts in these books is the chapter numbers. In the first book, they’re elevator buttons, and in the second, they’re Roman numerals carved with claw marks. I hope he keeps up this trend.)

I was hoping for an improvement in Gray Area: The Case of the Hellhound Homicide. The story starts with a bloody scene in an office building, but no body. Scratch marks cover the floor, and the smell of sulfur lingers in the air. With the security systems proving no one entered or left following the apparent victim’s arrival, it seems like the work of a hellhound. Could this be an actual impossible crime?

This is a real belter of a set-up. On top of the unexplainable disappearance, the possible victims are quickly narrowed down to two people. And how to explain those claw marks? There’s plenty of possibility for trickery and clever clues, so it’s a shame that Akers resolves this in the most boring way possible.

The locked room is disappointing, but at least that’s gotten out of the way early. The other details get the most basic possible explanation but are still hard to buy. After the cleverness of Gray Tones, this was a huge disappointment.

Honestly, the best part of the mystery starts in Chapter 14, right before the end (oops), when Gray finds an unexpected discovery that defies obvious explanation. The baffling nature made me miss how obvious the answer is, but I still wish this development had happened earlier.

There are still shades of cleverness here, often with strings attached. The killer’s identity is surprising, but Gray doesn’t figure this out, basically just guessing it at the last possible second. Akers manages to hide key moments under your nose, so you don’t even realize you need to look for them until they’re revealed. However, these moments are late in the book and really need a stronger first half to back them up. One of my favorite scenes involves a confrontation with a strange gunman, involving clever deductions relating to Gray’s impairments, but this is unrelated to the main plot. There’s a hilarious reveal at the end which recontextualizes several other moments and proves that Gray’s impairments are more than mere set dressing, but again it’s only a minor touch.

Akers hits on some real brilliance here, and I think it would come out better with the guidance of an professional editor. That would also catch the general weirdness that seems characteristic of a lot of self-published works. Like in the first book, when Gray loses his mind talking to an attractive woman, kind of undermining a later moment in Gray Area and his relationship with his wife. Or in the second book, which features the minor impossibility of a female art student at an NYC university defending a cop from being called a pig.

And speaking of which, I don’t see why this has to be set in New York. Surely West Virginia has big cities too, with elevators and office buildings. Akers even calls attention to this in the dedication but goes ahead and does it anyway. I’m not saying stick to what you know, but there’s a clear difference between NIGHT FILM, whose author actually lives in New York, and books written by people who’ve only seen it on TV.

Still, I’ll likely return to Gray Gaynes eventually. The third book sounds like another impossibility, which I can only be apprehensive about now. Either way, I am curious about what will happen to Gray Gaynes next, particularly regarding the overarching plot, and Gray Area ends with a sequel hook that’s genuinely interesting. I don’t expect R. L. Akers to be an undiscovered master of the mystery genre, but these books are short, entertaining reads. Who am I to expect anything more?