Tribe

The crisp Minneapolis winter is the stage for the unraveling of old secrets in this latest Todd Mills mystery. Trying to move on with his life after the murder of his lover, Michael, Mills, a respected journalist, is taken by surprise when college sexual encounters reemerge to disrupt both his life and that of his best friend, lesbian attorney Janice Gray. Janice, it turns out, had a son either by Todd or by another classmate, who also had an affair with Todd. Now that son, Zeb, appears, desperate to protect his own baby daughter from the religious cult of his adoptive father. The plot unfolds swiftly and efficiently, and the characters have widely diverse but always believable motives. But what makes this mystery stand out goes deeper than narrative and characterization. The importance of loving friendships and the implications of homophobia and self-loathing (really internalized homophobia) lie at the heart of this multifaceted story. (Aug.)