THREE YEARS AGO, with his novel Michael Tolliver Lives, Armistead Maupin returned to his much-admired “Tales of the City” series after a nearly twenty-year hiatus. It was a welcome homecoming for Maupin’s many fans …

In the latest novel in the series, Mary Ann in Autumn, Maupin picks up the story of Mary Ann Singleton.

THE HISTORY of gay male literature in South Africa is select, and almost entirely white. To this reviewer, the grace and insight of its finest exemplar, Mark Behr’s novel Embrace, is now equaled by The Jack Bank.

Mike Weiss was a reporter at the trial of Dan White, the city supervisor who killed Harvey Milk along with Mayor George Moscone. After being interviewed by Randy Shilts, he decided to turn his notes into a book. Double Play was first published in 1984 with the subtitle “The San Francisco City Hall Killings.” This choice of words was deliberate. Dan White confessed to the shootings, but as a result of a successful “diminished capacity” defense, he was convicted of voluntary manslaughter, not murder. White was given an amazingly light sentence and served only five years in prison. Less than two years after his release, he committed suicide.

“YOU PROBABLY like to imagine your death the way it should be: You are old. By old, you mean ready to die. Resolved. You are in bed, with your mind intact and loved ones encircling you. Your regrets are few; your pain minimal. Your last words: golden.” So opens a novel that is both timeless and contemporary, set in Toronto. If you suspect that this beginning does not foreshadow a serenely predictable death, you’d be right. This is a novel in which there’s always the possibility of violence and sudden endings.

In From the Closet to the Courtroom, Carlos Ball personalizes the history of the GLBT legal rights movement of the last thirty years by providing a lively narrative account of five extraordinary court cases and the ordinary people behind them.