Richard Lipez, Who Reimagined the Gay Detective Novel, Dies at 83
Richard Lipez, the author of a series of crime novels centered on an openly gay detective who, unlike the one-dimensional depictions common in the genre in the 1980s and ’90s, is not a tortured soul or a freak but a relatable character who is content with his life, died on March 16 at his home in Becket, Mass.
He was 83. The cause was pancreatic cancer, said his husband, Joe Wheaton. Under the pseudonym Richard Stevenson, Mr. Lipez (pronounced leh-PEZ) wrote 17 mysteries in the series.
His protagonist, Donald Strachey (pronounced STRAY-chee), worked the underside of Albany, N.Y. He was named after Lytton Strachey, the early 20th-century English biographer; the name appealed to Mr.
Lipez because Strachey, a gay intellectual, represented the antithesis of the stereotypical macho gumshoe. Still, Mr. Lipez, known as Dick, respected the tough-guy tradition of the genre, and before he began writing a new book he would reread Raymond Chandler for inspiration.
