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Kelly, Susan - 'Murder on the Dance Floor'
Hardback: 288 pages (June 2007) Publisher: Allison & Busby ISBN: 0749081198

Superintendent Gregory Summers has a new DCI. Striker Freeman is the fifth in four years. Hopefully this one will be competent and stick around for a while. Striker is ex-Israeli army and fit, so at least he won't die in harness.

Freeman is just beginning to learn the ropes of his new posting when a teenage girl dies at a local night club. This apparent death from Ecstacy is the second in a few months but an autopsy proves everyone wrong. This wasn't a tragic accident; this was a death from a highly dangerous new drug. Taking Entrium Trilenium ("Entry") is like playing Russian roulette with your life. One pill can kill. And in this case it did.

The police need to find out who is making this toxic drug and selling it to local kids. And they need to find out quickly before there are more deaths. They launch an operation to watch the local night- club to find out who is responsible. Their first night coincides with the hen party of the fiancee of one of Summers' detectives. There are off-duty officers, their friends and relatives at the night club, including the twin daughters of the new DCI. The night ends in tragedy for one member of the party and Summers finds himself facing one of the most challenging cases of his career.

The opening chapters in the night-club gradually build the tension. It is going to end very badly for someone, but who? This makes compulsive, page-turning reading. Once the victim is revealed, the book shifts to a slightly slower pace as the detectives go about unravelling the case. This doesn't make the book any less absorbing. MURDER ON THE DANCE FLOOR is a first-rate example of contemporary crime-writing. It has all the right elements: tension, a twisting plot, strong and distinctive characters and a good blend of the working and private lives of the police involved in the investigation.

MURDER ON THE DANCE FLOOR is the seventh in the Superintendent Gregory Summers series and I will be on the lookout for the author's other books.

Sunnie Gill, Australia
September 2008

Sunnie blogs at
Sunnie's Book Blog.

More European crime fiction reviews can be found on the Reviews page.



last updated 27/09/2008 14:39