Skate Crime

by Alina Adams

Book Overview

From the New York Timesbestselling author of Oakdale Confidential. Bex Levy is shooting footage of veteran coach and skater Lucian Price for a tribute piece when he takes a bad fall-and dies. It seems to just be a tragic accident, until Bex discovers that his skates had been tampered with.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0425218031
• ISBN13: 9780425218037
• Release Date: December 2007
• Publisher: Berkley Prime Crime
• Length: 217 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 4.3" x 6.8"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Not quite a ten --

Alina Adams has a terrific grasp of the competitive ice skating world, and easily transmits this to the page, making it easy for the reader to follow right along. Having read a couple of the prior books in the series (but you can easily read them out of sequence, too) I enjoyed the characters, the plot, the writing, and the mystery, which was always neatly solved. This one isn't, which really puzzled me. It's a very unsatisfactory ending, in my opinion, although I realize that others may disagree with that opinion. But that's what makes the world go around. Bex Levy utilizes her tenacity and skills as a researcher for a television network that produces programs about ice skating. Goodness knows there's plenty of that available during the winter months in the northern hemisphere, and probably in the other half of the world during the other half a year, as well. This time, she's off to Colorado to produce (her big chance!) a tribute show to an iconic skating teacher, Lucian Pryce. Unhappily the morning filming is to begin, Lucian stumbles on the ice, falls and suffers fatal injuries. As the skaters he's coached and the women he's loved gather for the tribute - which will still be produced, only now with a somewhat different emphasis - Bex digs for answers to her myriad questions. Her personal life brings another complication: the man she loves (probably) has a teen-aged son who is also a skater, and while young Jeremy never trained with Lucian, he does train with Lucian's first skating partner Toni Wright. There's also Sabrina, Lucian's daughter by his first marriage, his second wife, Gina and two of his famous students--Chris Kelly, who won the men's gold at two Olympics and Gabrielle, who didn't quite get that far. If only the ending lived up to the rest of the book. Sigh. It was such fun to read about skaters of the past, and try to figure out just who was who. The final maneuver just didn't quite make it!

fine amateur sleuth

Bex Levy is a figure skating researcher for 24/7 Television Network. What she really wants to do is produce a show and she gets her chance when her boss assigns her the Lucian Pryce special, a tribute to a great figure skater and coach who still practices with champions at the age sixty five. At the skating rink, they watch Lucian on the ice when he suddenly trips and falls, which proves to be a DEATH DROP as he is dead almost immediately; Bex thinks he is murdered. His blades on his skates are in bad shape something Lucian would never let happen. Bex makes her belief known to everyone close to Lucian and find they all have a motive. His daughter Sabrina blames him for the death of his first wife. His present wife holds him accountable for ending her promising career. His star pupil made the moves another pupil of Lucian's so she wouldn't be nervous before a performance but he dumps her. Dr. Gabriel Cassidy a former student tried to commit suicide because Lucian pushed her too hard. Even though nobody believes Bex's theory, she is determined to investigate until she is proven right. The point of view changes from chapter to chapter, each one dedicated to a specific character as they relate their feelings and relationships to the victim. It is a good technique in Alina Adams' capable hands as the audience sees why there are so many suspects with so many different motives. Readers will enjoy Bex stubbornly question the suspects while deciding whether to accept her boyfriend's proposal of marriage. Harriet Klausner