Further Tales of the City

Once again I return to San Francisco in Armistead Maupin's "Further Tales of the City", the third installment in the "Tales" series (preceded by "Tales of the City" and "More Tales of the City").

"The calamity-prone residents of 28 Barbary Lane are at it again in this deliciously dark novel of romance and betrayal. While Anna Madrigal imprisons an anchor-woman in her basement, Michael Tolliver looks for love at the National Gay Rodeo, DeDe Halcyon Day and Mary Ann Singleton track a charismatic psychopath across Alaska, and society columnist Prue Giroux loses her heart to a derelict living in a San Francisco Park."

The third installment is definitely my least favorite entry in the series thus far (there are still three more books). While the characters are still endearing (curious that some major characters from previous books were missing), the storylines become even more incredible than in the two previous books. A large portion of the book deals with a mystery surrounding the tragic end to the infamous Jonestown mass suicides. This portion of the book takes up a lot of the narrative and is wildly over the top. Perhaps the thirty year old events would have been more interesting to read at the time of publication, the early 80's.

Overall I did enjoy the book, once again I appreciate Maupin's writing style and his ability to create wonderful characters. I also like the progression of the book's timeline, as now we are entering the 1980's. Recommended for fans of the series or Armistead Maupin. While there are still more books in the "Tales" series I don't think I'll be reading them any time soon but eventually I'll be happy to return to 28 Barbary Lane.