Godfrey applies skills drawn from TV detective shows to attempt to solve the mystery disappearance of a local gay bartender in 1960s NZ, while exploring his own sexuality.

Reggie was still missing after five days, and Gladys Harris was saying things about him that quivered in my mind, which now, four years later, I see as being that opening sentence leading me to this burden of what happened to Reggie Kingsley.

In the harbour city of New Plymouth in the 1960s there’s a fizz of seedy sexuality beneath a veneer of respectability. Godfrey’s world is the Balmoral Hotel his parents own, where visiting sailors drink and local fringe-dwellers congregate.

When Reggie, the openly gay barman, goes missing Godfrey senses something sinister. There’s a prevailing attitude of inevitability. Godfrey doesn’t get it, but he’s hungry to understand. Guided by his daytime-television and pulp-fiction detective heroes and a very active imagination, he attempts to solve the mystery-in the process stumbling into his own sexual adventures and discovering a new-found power in a perplexing adult world.

The Birds Began to Sing delves into a world of shadows, nods and unspoken understandings with a warmth and humour that make this novel a delight.