Review: Josh Lanyon’s SNOWBALL IN HELL.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the complimentary ARC. All opinions provided are my own.

I’ve seen people recommend Josh Lanyon before & a 1940s, atmospheric read with a murder mystery seemed like a good place to start.

It feels difficult to sum up my feelings on Snowball in Hell but basically: on one hand, the book’s portrayal of how dangerous it was for queer men in the 1940s feels authentic to real life but on the other, from a romance-reading perspective the book is darker than I expected it would be. And while I think this is book 1 in a series, I didn’t totally appreciate how I felt hopeful but not necessarily settled about where the leads are together or separately at the end of this one.

In Snowball in Hell Lieutenant Matt Spain is tasked with finding who murdered the son of a wealthy man & left his body in a tar pit. Also helping him investigate, but on an unofficial level, is reporter Nathan Doyle.

Bringing in some lingering trauma from their respective war experiences, their various perspectives on their sexuality & the shame & in Matt’s case, denial, about some aspects of it, & the homophobia of the time period in general, Snowball in Hell is not a light read.

The murder mystery aspect is fun, & seeing Matt & Nathan connect, particularly while they’re basically cut off from the world on Christmas Eve & Christmas, is touching. I hope that the next books will allow both men to come to some peace in how they view themselves & their sexuality & carve out a space for their relationship that feels relatively safe.

3 ⭐️. Out now!


Additional CWs: “sissy” reference. Wartime injuries. Grief. Violence toward Nathan on page. Fatphobia. Reference to manageress having “goosestepped.” Matt doesn’t see himself as a queer person but as a “regular guy.” Matt slept with men during war while married. Wife died of cancer. Nathan almost had himself voluntarily committed so his homosexuality could be “cured” (I’m using quotation marks there, not the book.) Nathan makes remarks about having wishing he hadn’t “opened his eyes again” & being “unlucky” to have survived war.