Title: The Only Way Is Larceny
Author: Lou Collins
Date: 2023
Publisher: Boldface
Quote: "Chloe stepped through the revolving door, eager to rehearse."
Just before a performance in her farewell season in the local summer theatre, aging dancer Chloe Essex can't find the tiara she wears. Chloe is the star, a tribute to her years of service, though even she wonders whether a resentful younger dancer might do better in the part...or might have stolen the tiara in hopes that Chloe will be blamed for losing it and quit. Or maybe the theatre owner hid it in hopes of collecting insurance money. Or maybe another dancer, who's rumored to have had financial problems...Which of Chloe's acquaintances was desperate enough to feel that "the only way is larceny," and how can that person be helped?
This mystery will be quickly solved, with a promise of more complicated mysteries ahead as Chloe makes detecting a post-retirement career. I think it could have used more editing (unless the narrator-as-character is intended to let phrases and clauses "dangle," as part of the comic effect?) but it's whimsical and fun, a little stretch for the brain in which nobody is murdered.
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