Murder on Ice (Figure Skating Mystery)Does any­body won­der where Alina Adams went to? Why don’t you try the mys­tery aisle.  In fact, she writes Ice Skat­ing mys­ter­ies fea­tur­ing sleuth, Rebecca “Bex” Levy. Mur­der on Ice is the first mys­tery fea­tur­ing Bex. She’s a skat­ing researcher for 24/7 Sports Net­work.  Bex is best described as more of a self-deprecating sleuth. Her boss, Gil Cahill expects her to inves­ti­gate and solve crimes that will gar­ner rat­ings and give them the exclu­sive.  Along the way, Adams injects just enough humor to make things inter­est­ing for her but the mys­tery is pretty sim­ple and it’s the char­ac­ters who make this series fun. 

Bex’s job is to know any­thing and every­thing there is to know about the com­peti­tors who are skat­ing in tour­na­ments.  She pro­vides cru­cial infor­ma­tion to commentators/former skat­ing cham­pi­ons — Fran­cis and Diana Howarth, who don’t always get along on and off air.  The author goes through all the rival­ries of skat­ing com­pe­ti­tions. Giv­ing the reader insider knowl­edge about the skat­ing world.  It’s almost like get­ting first hand infor­ma­tion from behind the scenes of skating.  

The cen­tral plot in this story deals with a rivalry between the Russ­ian skater, Xenia Tru­bin and the Amer­i­can skater, Erin Simp­son. After the scores are tal­lied, it is found that Xenia has won the Gold and Erin the Sil­ver. No sur­prise that this causes an upset. Who to blame? It is sus­pected that one of the judges was bribed. Then there’s pres­sure on the judge to change her vote.  However, soon after the close of the com­pe­ti­tion, the judge is found dead. Thus, it is up to Bex to solve the mys­tery of the dead judge and get the exclu­sive. Never mind the police, who seem to be work­ing the case. Bex usu­ally does this solo any­way. She does get some help from ama­teur sleuths like herself.

This is a fun series thus far. I’ve read two of the four mys­ter­ies that are out right now.  I like Bex and her over the top boss who expects her to do more than her job descrip­tion with­out pay­ing her for it. The mys­ter­ies are not all that seri­ous nor are they all that complex. Also, the end­ings are wrapped up a bit too neatly.  What draws read­ers like me is the writ­ing, the humor and the inter­est in skat­ing even though I don’t have any knowl­edge of skat­ing and never have watched the Win­ter Olympics. Never cared. This is Alina Adams area of exper­tise as this is what she did for years. She has made this a fun series to read thus far and I would grade this entry a B+. So you miss her romances? Get over it. Her mys­ter­ies are pretty good.

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