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Situation (Whit & Eddie 13)
By Frank W. Butterfield
Published by the author, 2022
Five stars

The world gets very real in this episode of Whit and Eddie’s life on the page. There was a moment when it felt like an episode of “The Purge,�� but what this book really is is a pivotal moment in Whit and Eddie’s relationship, triggered by events, both personal and international, over which they have—in spite of their vast wealth—no control.

Things go on as usual in Whit and Eddie’s weird new life. They’re filming a new take on a classic old film—with an interracial gay twist; they’ve acquired a huge chain of Florida newspapers (sort of transforming them, in my mind, into the benevolent gay version of the Roys from television’s “Succession��); and they’re building a proper, secure residential compound on the beach at Daytona.

Then the proverbial shoes start to drop, and the story shifts in emotional tone as the shadow of the current, awful invasion of Ukraine by Russia begins to loom. Suddenly, Whit’s ethnicity and his complicated birth family moves to center stage, and our two dear friends face challenges they’ve never had to face before. Even as they get more comfortable being among the richest and most powerful men on earth, they are confronted with the limits of what even they can do to protect each other.

The Whit & Eddie series, in which we are always reminded of the past history of WilliamsJones and its founders, is truly episodic. The books stand alone, but they really need the context of the extraordinary universe that Frank Butterfield created back when Nick Williams first popped into his mind. Indeed, for some reason, I was constantly thinking of the series that originally inspired Butterfield’s own creativity, J.B. Sander’s Glen & Tyler books. Even with all they have and all they’ve learned with each other, Whit and Eddie find that the world can be an overwhelming place. As always, the panoply of curious and endearing characters, and Butterfield’s loving presentation of them, keeps the story vibrant and emotionally charged.

As one character notes in passing, the people at WilliamsJones seem to do a lot of crying. Indeed.