In Miami Manhunt (Kensington; 280 pages; $15), friends Ray Martinez and Ted Williams attend a gay book group that meets at Books & Books, a real and well-loved bookstore in Coral Gables, Florida.

Author Jonny Diaz

One of the books that the group considers reading is “Boys of Boston by Tommy Perez, a former [Miami] News writer now at the Boston Daily, ... about dating in Boston and told through the viewpoints of three different guys. A Same Sex in the City. A fun read that explores various issues among today’s gay men.”

Needless to say, the group decides to read Boys of Boston.

Boys of Boston, of course, is a thinly-disguised version of Boston Boys Club, the first novel by self-described “Beantown Cuban” Johnny Diaz. It could also, except for the locale, describe Diaz’s second novel, Miami Manhunt. Diaz, a Miami native who first made his name as a reporter for the Miami Herald, now writes for the Boston Globe, where he contributes his unique perspective as an openly gay, Cuban-American reporter.

Both Boston Boys Club and Miami Manhunt combine real venues with fictional characters and use as their focus a popular gay watering hole: Club Café in Boston and Score on Miami Beach. In both novels, Diaz reflects on his own experiences as a gay, Cuban-American man, both in his native Miami and his adopted Boston.

Like Boys of Boston, Miami Manhunt centers around the lives of three friends: Ray Martinez, Ted Williams and Brian Anderson. Ray, who’s obviously based on the author himself, is a nice Cuban boy and film critic with a closed-knit familia and a straight twin brother - the delightfully-named Racso - to boot.

Ted is a TV news reporter and host of Deco Time, Miami’s version of Entertainment Tonight. Brian is the kept partner of a fabulously wealthy Israeli, with whom he has an open relationship. All three friends try to find lasting love in a community that boasts “the most gorgeous males ever created by God or a lifetime gym membership” but where “books are used as towel weights.”

Diaz describes Miami Manhunt as his own “love letter to Miami.” As a long-time South Florida resident myself - though closer in age to Diaz’s Cuban-born parents – I recognize many of the venues in his book, from Flamingo Park on Miami Beach to the Versailles Restaurant in Little Havana.

South Beach, of course is the center of Miami Manhunt, just as it was the center of Diaz’s gay life when he was still living in Miami. (To a large extent, the mainland neighborhoods east of Biscayne Boulevard, Miami Shores and North Miami have replaced South Beach as the center of Miami’s gay community, if not of Miami gay nightlife.) On the other hand, Diaz (or Ray) is not as kind to Fort Lauderdale, which he describes as “so blah, South Florida’s vanilla compared to Miami’s colorful burst of tropical sorbet.”

Miami Manhunt is not a great book, and not just because it’s basically a copy of Boston Boys Club. It is the kind of book you read on the beach, on the treadmill, or even on the toilet. But it is a fun book to read, especially if you live in South Florida. For extra fun, try to match the fictional characters with real personalities. I’ve basically figured out who two of the three leads are, but I’m not saying.

The characters are endearing, and their predicaments make for exciting reading. Even Diaz’s adopted Boston and Club Café make brief appearances, as Ted and Ray visit the city for a gay journalists’ conference. All in all, Miami Manhunt is a worthwhile read, even if you don’t live in Miami.

We first heard of Alistair McCartney as the partner of artist Tim Miller, whose performance pieces often involved the handsome Mr. Miller taking off all his clothes on stage. (Which is why I remember him so well.)

At the time, Miller was fighting for the right of the Australian-born McCartney to stay in the United States, a right that would be automatic if McCartney was Miller’s wife. (Their fight still goes on, even as we speak.) But what I didn’t realize till now was that McCartney is a talented writer in his own right.

The End of the World Book: A Novel (Terrace Books; 306 pages; $26.95) is Alistair McCartney’s first book, and it is in its way as good as anything his partner has produced. Though subtitled “A Novel,” The End of the World Book is clearly autobiographical, written from the point of view of a protagonist who is, in many ways, like McCartney himself.

Born in 1971 in Perth, Australia, “the world’s most isolated city” - and the birth-place of the dearly departed Heath Ledger - McCartney’s protagonist grew up reading the World Book Encyclopedia and, indeed, The End of the World Book reads like an encyclopedia, with entries arranged in alphabetical order by topic.