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DANGEROUS CURVES
by Judith Skillings
Avon, March 2005
352 pages
$6.50
ISBN: 0060583193


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

If you love to drive or enjoy vintage cars, you'll want to read Judith Skillings' mysteries featuring Rebecca Moore. Skillings' latest, DANGEROUS CURVES, gives an inside view on classic car restoration and the Washington DC sex trades.

Rebecca Moore is as classy as her cars, with style and taste to fit into the most posh of the vintage car rallies. When her mechanics are arrested because of a dead body in the trunk of a 1925 Bentley three-litre, Rebecca springs into action. She's as concerned about the car as she is about her mechanics and all hell breaks loose as Rebecca goes undercover at a downtown sex club.

To prepare for her undercover role as a stripper, Rebecca takes dance lessons from a skinny-hipped woman with big hair and lashes. Patty Jenks has a studio down by the 7-Eleven, not the best part of town. She found God one night and decided her salvation lay in turning young girls from prostitution to stripping. Skillings convincingly presents dance as an act of defiance and independence, and Rebecca spends the afternoon getting naked, finding the zen of strip dance.

Afterwards, she's pleasantly relaxed, has an apple and calls the housekeeper who raised her. The chapters that describe Rebecca's dance lessons are sensual and are the most sexual chapters in the mystery -- Rebecca keeps her distance from her admirers -- in her life as well as when she is undercover in the sex club.

The mystery and subplots are set early in the book and lay a nice foundation for the arc of the novel: the body in the Bentley, the alternately funny and endearing characteristics of the mechanics, the mysterious Mrs Weatherly and the men who circle around Rebecca and vie for her attention. Threads are neatly tied by the end of the book and justice is served in a satisfying manner.

DANGEROUS CURVES is a fast and fun read. There could be a bit less exposition and on occasion action and anger could be presented more directly and with more interest by using dialogue. Skillings' first mystery featuring Rebecca Moore was DEAD END, published by Avon in 2004.

Reviewed by Maureen Battistella, June 2005

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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