X by Davey Davis

An electrifying novel about the creeping reality of political terror, and the violent pleasures found in Brooklyn's queer heartlands. Part noir, part erotic thriller, X is a vivid, moody and darkly funny portrait of those living on the margins of an increasingly hostile society. Broke and discontented, amateur sadist Lee spends their days working for a big corporation and their nights searching the warehouses and dungeons of Brooklyn looking for the mysterious, seductive, and bloodthirsty X.
 
In a sly purging of migrants, refugees, sex workers and queers - any citizens they claim to be undesirable - the US government has started exporting people, and Lee has heard X might be among those about to disappear. As their obsession with X grows, Lee becomes further enmeshed in the crimes and dramas of the city's queer community, following ex-lovers, playmates, clients, best friends, and accidental accomplices through damp and shining bars and parties looking for any lead that might bring them closer to X, before she vanishes for good.
 
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"Davis is an astounding writer, seemingly unconstrained by taboos and waist deep down in the maw of life, examining what the rest of us shy away from - never more than here in X, the rare book that can thrill and entertain, while simultaneously causing you to question everything about how you're living."- Torrey Peters, author of Detransition, Baby 
 
"OH OH OH I FINISHED IT AND THREW MYSELF DOWN THE STAIRS"- Leigh Cowart, author of Hurts So Good
 
"Hardboiled style meets dyke drama in the clubs and play parties of queer Brooklyn. In an atmosphere of creeping fascism, Davey Davis gives us a fascinating protagonist. When not making a mess of their life or wasting it on true crime podcasts, Lee is an amateur sadist obsessed with finding the mysterious X, mistress of the craft to which they aspire. X is both a delight to read and a penetrating study on the intimacy of violence and the violence of intimacy."- McKenzie Wark, author of Reverse Cowgirl