Jenny T. Partridge is a dance instructor living on the edge. The tuition her students pay is barely enough to keep her studio afloat. She relies on her annual production of the "Nutcracker" to keep her students coming, but now that production is in danger. One of the mamas has been murdered and her lead dancer is missing.

Detective Tate Wilson arrives on the scene; a gorgeous dark- haired, blue-eyed hunk with a deadly smile. He doesn't want to list Jenny as a suspect, but her fingerprints are all over the murder weapon, as well as a gallon of fundraiser cookie dough, and her motive spurs from a violent and public argument between the two women several days earlier. Jenny is the prime suspect and someone wants to keep it that way.

This is a Murphy's Law run amuck mystery and includes a chase by a Hemi, a couple of bombs and some very strange people. The heroine is fresh and a bit uncontrollable, the hero is a winner, and the growing relationship between them is fired by the conflict between what we should do and what we want to do that is present in all of us. Roberts leaves you with that one thing every good author should generate --

a desire for more. (PS: I really hope she keeps Wilson around for a very long time.)