Murder At The Ballet

Dead On Your Feet by Grant Michaels (St. Martin's Press, 256 pp.)

Who knifed Max Harkey, the director of the Boston City Ballet? That's the question hairstylist/amateur sleuth Stan Kraychik must answer in Grant Michaels's mystery, Dead On Your Feet. And the killer could be one of six suspects, including his lover, Rafik, the company's choreographer. Each has a motive, and an alibi. (Of the six, five "at some point had been a contender for Max Harkey's love.")

For Stan, finding the killer is as difficult as getting Rafik to let him see a rehearsal of the new ballet. Stan's primary goal is to clear Rafik's name from the list of suspects. Each attempt draws Stan deeper into the morass. And face to face with an old assortment of characters who include Marshall Zander, the foul-smelling benefactor with the hots for Stan and Sharleen McChannel, a psychic, who, while having her tresses blow dried, brings the salon to a standstill when she receives a revelation about Stan--"Very soon you will take a long trip."

The prediction comes true. Stan's investigation takes him all over Boston--and London, in search of Max's missing diary, which may help Stan identify the murderer.

Throughout his investigation, professional as well as romantic jealousies among the suspects come to the surface. Stan discovers that Max Harkey was not above manipulating the rivals for his heart. Also,Stan believes Rafik is having a fling with co-suspect, Toni di Natale, the female musical conductor. Both deny there is anything going on between them.

I found Dead On Your Feet not a very engrossing read. Michaels is clearly no John Grisham. The book is strictly for laughs, at the expense of giving the reader a real page-turning mystery. Even the chapter titles tip you off that Dead On Your Feet is not to be taken seriously("Singing in the Rain," "She Could Have Danced All Night," "Change Partners and Dance"). When the killer's identity is revealed, it doesn't really matter, even when the killer is pursuing Stan several stories above Boston clutching a stiletto. The killer is presented as a buffoon "with the same demented grin that King Kong used on Fay Wray."

 I much prefer the more masculine demeanor of Joseph Hansen's gay insurance investigator Dave Brandstetter or Robert B.Parker's Boston sleuth Spenser. Stan Kraychik is too campy, too swishy, and too whiny to be an authentic detective hero, who can pry loose information from even the most recalcitrant suspect. When one of the suspects says to Stan, "I don't know why I'm telling you this," my response was: "Me neither."

Ballet lovers may get some pleasure from Dead On Your Feet because it offers a behind-the-scenes look at the ballet world, but I doubt many hardcore mystery fans will.

This article was originally published in the Lambda Book Report (November/December 1993). It was reprinted in Savage Male magazine (San Francisco) in February 1994.