"The enumerators were everywhere that year, sex surveyors tracking the spread of HIV in San Francisco. But when someone told the enumerator a little too much about their sex life, that's when the killing started."
Lamont Bliss was found dead, strung up cruciform style, with flowers in every wound in his mutilated body. Then Jeff, Lamont's enumerator, dies, then Billy Blake gets killed the same way Lamont did… There's talk of a serial killer preying on gays, and somebody wants Jeff's file of sex surveys.
Alex, back from New Mexico with a slightly bruised heart, is staying with her brother Evan when Sean the enumerator knocks on the door. Sean is so gorgeous, pierced, tattooed, dressed in black that she assumes he's gay (as you do); later she finds out he isn't, well, not completely. Trouble is, Sean doesn't tell anybody all the truth, all the time, but Alex is too smitten to worry. With all the confidence of the newly in love, she discounts the advice of the well-meaning Evan, even when all the evidence points to Sean being somehow involved in the killings.
Alex ends up conducting her own investigation into Jeff's death, because "If I were Jeff Taylor's sister, I wouldn't rest till I found out what happened to him. So until Jeff Taylor's sister shows up, I'm going to do her work for her." I automatically identify with tattooed bottle-blondes dressed in black with big boots, can't think why, but even if I didn't I'd warm to Alex's particular blend of naiveté, savvy and bravery.
Once again Serpent's Tail have commissioned an excellent cover illustration (by Kim Wilson Brandt who should definitely get more work) which is appropriate as well as aesthetically pleasing. Please keep up the good work, Snake People.
The Enumerator is part tender and realistic love story, part political thriller. The politics here are those of sexuality, with Queer Nation ranged against the kind of right-wing Christian fundamentalism that thinks AIDS is God's vengeance on the wicked. The atmosphere is palpable; San Francisco is hot sweaty and dangerous, especially when you don't know who the bad guys are. Read it in one sitting, and then read it again, slowly. Well plotted, beautifully written, this is a book to treasure; tense, thrilling, and with that little extra something that I think is called heart. I'm keeping this one.
