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Monday, April 30, 2007

TBR Challenge for April

One of these months, I'm going to get my TBR challenge posted before the end of the month. *rolling my eyes*

The TBR Challenge for April is: Read a book by an author with a 3-syllable name (first or last).


To participate in the challenge, comment here or on your blog.

I chose:


****½ Murder on Ice by Alina Adams. Mystery.








This is the first in the series of figure skating mysteries about TV researcher and sleuth Bex Levy. I'd read the 3rd (#18) and 4th books, and bought the 1st and 2nd, but they've been buried in my TBR pile. I took advantage of this month's TBR challenge to dig the first one out.

It's the World Figure Skating Championship, and surprisingly, the Russian skater wins over the American favorite, with the Italian judge casting the deciding vote. Amid a huge controversy over bloc voting and accusations of bribery or coercion, the Italian judge is found dead. The police seem inclined to view it as an accident, but it seems too coincidental to ignore.

Bex has just gotten her job as figure skating researcher. Not only does she have to keep the on-air talent from screwing up (they're a former pairs skating team, who delight in goading each other), she's under the constant threat of losing her job (her boss's idea of motivation).

So in desperation, Bex promises to deliver the real story in two days.

The slow accumulation of clues and following false leads was mildly frustrating, but it was also refreshingly realistic. I'd much rather read about a sleuth, particularly an amateur one, who makes mistakes than one who gets it all right from the beginning. And the reader's frustration evokes Bex's, which is good, too.

There's also the very realistic-feeling look inside the world of figure skating competitions, and our introduction to the slightly larger-than-life ongoing characters of Bex's boss Gil and the on-air commentators, the Howarths.

Murder on Ice had been in my TBR pile for about a year. I'm hoping to unearth the 2nd book in the series before the 5th comes out.


...more


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Comments:
Knowing how much I love series books, I might pick this series up. I watch Professional Figure Ice Skating on TV all the time and love it. But I just never ever read a book on Ice Skating.

This book look interesting though. Great review as always, Darla :)
 
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