High Heels and Homicide by Kasey Michaels, a Mysterious Review.

Review: The latest book in the Maggie Kelly series, High Heels and Homicide, is a delightfully funny mystery set largely in an atmospheric 17th century English manor house during a dark and stormy night.

The unusual twist in this series is that mystery author Maggie Kelly has created a fictional Regency-era character for her books, the aristocrat-detective Alexandre Blake, Viscount Saint Just, who has mysteriously come to life with all the characteristics that Kelly imbued in him but without any knowledge or experience of modern life. This premise makes for many comical situations, and Michaels takes full advantage of them in her mysteries.

Michaels captures the essence of the movie industry very well with all its personalities, egos, and insecurities. The action moves along at a brisk pace, and the dialog is frequently funny and entertaining. The fact that the author spends more time on "romance" than "mystery" in this romantic mystery is quibbling.

Don't judge this book by its cover … or its title for that matter. The original title for this mystery, Maggie Gets Some Direction, is not only more appropriate for the book and the series, but adds an ironic element to the storyline and the interplay of the principal characters.

Acknowledgment: Book Trends provided an ARC of High Heels and Homicide for this review.

High Heels and Holidays
Kensington Books (Trade Paperback), October 2006
ISBN-13: 9780758208828; ISBN-10: 0758208820

High Heels and Homicide

A Maggie Kelly Mystery by Kasey Michaels