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Mystery writer Maggie Kelly has been having some problems booking her flight to England to watch the production of one of her novels being turned into a movie. But Alex Blakely, also known as the Viscount Saint Just, solves that problem for her. The fact that Blakely started out as a fictional character in one of Maggie's previous novels and somehow jumped out of the pages and became very real doesn't seem to bother Maggie much. Blakely is very handsome and can do anything so Maggie has a very strong crush on him. He feels the same way towards Maggie. Along with Blakely, Sterling Balder, Blakely's faithful sidekick, jumped out of her book's pages as well and Maggie is doing her best to hide this information from those around her. They first visit Maggie's family in New Jersey and after three very long days they travel to rainy England and arrive at the castle where the movie's to be filmed. After the happy arrival of Maggie's agent and editor things start to go bad: The screenwriter has changed the end of Maggie's book, the actors are moody, the woman in charge of production is keeping track of every penny spent, the owner of the castle is trying to bed every American woman, the rain has stranded them in the castle with the electricity gone, there's also a ghost haunting the castle, and then some of the production people are found murdered. Because of the flooding the police can't get to the castle so it is up to Maggie, Blakely, Sterling and her friends to find out who is murdering the cast and crew. HIGH HEELS AND HOMICIDE is Kasey Michaels' fifth installment in this series. Even though these books have a huge following, I don't see that there's much to it. While the premise of an author's fictional characters coming to life out of her book and helping to solve cases is cute, this series goes on too long about the potential love interest between the author and her character. It seems everybody adores Maggie since she also has a live boyfriend who is a detective in New York City. Blakely is jealous of the cop and Maggie isn't sure which man she really loves. Does she want the live boyfriend or her now alive fictional character? There are double entendres all throughout the series and Maggie is extremely flirty with Blakely while attempting to prove to him that she doesn't care. Bottom line, I didn't care. The story strikes me as too much of a writer's self-satisfaction with herself and her creations and since I don't share in her adoration of her characters, the whole book collapses in an annoying puddle. I'm sure fans of Kasey Michaels and the Maggie Kelly series will love HIGH HEELS AND HOMICIDE but after reading two books, this series leaves me cold.
Reviewed by Sharon Katz, December 2005
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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