Friday, August 12, 2011

Quickstep to Murder-Ella Barrick

Quickstep to Murder
Ella Barrick
Obsidian, Sep 6 2011, $6.99
ISBN: 9780451234544

In Old Town Alexandria engaged couple Stacy Graysin and Rafe Acosta own Graysin Motion ballroom dance studio. Anyone watching the pair of dance instructors performing the quickstep would conclude they are so in synch with the foxtrot Charleston mix they must be in love. However four months ago Stacy ended their two-year engagement tango when she saw her Rafe doing a horizontal number with Solonge Dubonnet.

They remain business partners teaching ballroom dancing. However, Rafe wants Stacy to take him back in her personal life as he insists his mambo with Solonge was money driven. Having inherited the building (with her sister) from her late aunt, Stacey lives downstairs from the studio. At night she hears a thump upstairs and investigates only to find Rafe’s corpse. Alexandra Police Department Detective Troy and Lissy suspect Stacy killed her partner and former fiancĂ© in a fit of rage. Solange arrives using a key Rafe gave her and accuses Stacy of killing her almost fiancĂ©. Leon Hall comes next and accuses Rafe of getting his daughter pregnant. Finally politician Sherry Indrebo asks Stacy to look for some items of hers that Rafe had. Octavia Acosta arrives from Argentina following the police notifying his father that his son died and sent his “like brother” to bring the body home. Tav inherited Rafe’s half of the studio. Not trusting the police to look anywhere else but her, she and Tav team up to investigate who pulled the curtain on the ballroom dance instructor.

The first Ballroom Dance Mystery is an engaging debonair amateur sleuth that will have readers dancing the Lindy. Stacy is terrific as her sophisticated world collapses thanks totally to Rafe who is a bigger pain dead than he was alive. Readers will enjoy the heroine’s dancing with the stars of suspects.

Harriet Klausner

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