Readers who would be stirred, not shaken, by a comedic spy novel featuring hot gay characters should check out The Tuxedo Society by the reliably hilarious Paul Rudnick (Gorgeous; Playing the Palace; What Is Wrong with You?). The story's accidental James Bond is Andrew Birnbaum, a gay aspiring actor who lives in the East Village and sells candles at Smells of the Season. A friend who "missed out on a modeling career due to being overly perfect" invites him to dine with the all-queer Tuxedo Society, an underground counterespionage group that works with the U.S. government. The group employs members' skills--their contingent includes an Olympic diver and a celebrity florist--to infiltrate the ranks of politicians and oligarchs and thwart their evil schemes. They need an actor for their latest assignment: at the request of the First Lady, they are to recover three jewels thought to have mystical powers and help her repatriate them.
That's the setup for Rudnick's wacky adventure, a madcap romp that includes a Republican senator from Alabama who votes against every LGBTQ+ bill but secretly patronizes a male Tuxedo Society member's OnlyFans, a French mogul who wants to loot every priceless antiquity and whose handsome son takes a shine to Andrew, and more. Buried amid the fun is a quasi-serious message about the power and pride of queer people, but fun predominates in this delightfully impudent book. What's not to like about a novel in which spies are equipped with phones that, for authentication purposes, recognize not thumbprints or passwords but the owner's penis? --Michael Magras, freelance book reviewer