Book Review: *Skating Around the Law* by Joelle Charbonneau

Skating Around the Law by Joelle Charbonneau

Back-of-the-book blurb:   Rebecca Robbins is a woman on a mission—to sell the roller rink she inherited from her mother and get back to Chicago. Fast. However, when she discovers the dead body of the town’s handyman headfirst in a rink toilet, potential buyers are scared off. Now Rebecca is stuck in a small town where her former neighbors think she doesn’t belong, living with her scarily frisky grandfather, Pop, and relying on a police department that’s better at gardening than solving crimes.

Eager to move forward with her life, Rebecca begins investigating the murder herself, reluctantly accepting help from Pop and his extensive social network, which includes a handsome veterinarian and a former circus camel named Elwood. Nevertheless, someone isn’t happy she’s looking into the case, and their threats will have her questioning whether playing sleuth was such a good idea after all.

She Is Too Fond of Books’ review:  Skating Around the Law is the book that Jen @DevourerOfBooks recommended to me when I tweeted that “with all the holiday busyness I can’t concentrate. I need a book that will grab me.”  I invited my twitter friends to look at my LibraryThing account and search on my ‘tbr’ (“to be read”) list.  This mystery was enthusiastically endorsed, I think the quote was “Skating Around the Law! Skating Around the Law!”

She was right on the money!  Skating Around the Law pulled me in with a murder mystery that kept me entertained and kept me guessing.  This has elements of both a cozy (sure, there was a murder … but I didn’t have a vested interest in the victim … and it wasn’t grisly!) and an amateur sleuth mystery.  To be fair, Rebecca Robbins is a mortgage broker – she vehemently contradicts the locals who refer to her as a detective – but she is much more effective than the local police force when it comes to questioning suspects and following up on leads!

The characters aren’t simply quirky, they’re funny!  The list includes Rebecca’s grandfather, Pop, a real ladies’ man on the bingo circuit; a handsome veterinarian; a hair stylist stuck in the Aqua Net age; the retired town librarian, now living with a houseful of cats; an aging rollerskating instructor who imagines himself to be a potential for the Ice Capades; a real estate agent who knows everybody’s business; and a handful of high school kids who make the Toe Stop their favorite hangout.

For a  taste of a character snapshot and Charbonneau’s witty, quick writing style; enjoy this excerpt from the morning after (the murder is discovered):

I paddled to the bathroom the next morning with a blinding headache, no doubt caused by the beer I’d consumed.  The alcohol was probably also to blame for the strange dreams I remembered having.  Or maybe it was the memory of finding Mack’s body that had me hearing sounds in the dark.  I’d found myself jumping at creaking and banging sounds all night long.

Pop’s medicine cabinet was a mini pharmacy.  I popped the lid on a bottle of aspirin and downed four of them.  Looking down at the counter, I noticed two glasses sitting on the counter.  They both contained a set of teeth.  In the week I’d been staying with Pop, I’d almost become accostumed to seeing soaking dentures.  Still, the extra glass confused me.  Why would Pop …

Oh God!  I winced as the source of the middle-of-the night creaking made sense.  I hadn’t been listening to Mack’s ghost.  My grandfather had gotten lucky.

Rebecca has returned to Indian Falls only so she can sell the Toe Stop and high-tail it back to Chicago.  Although the rink was her mother’s legacy, Rebecca never felt the same pull for roller skating and the small town life.  She’s eager to get back to her job and apartment in the Windy City; but, a murder at the rink has put a dent in the market value, and Rebecca is determined to solve the mystery herself, rather than wait around for the local police to connect the dots.

And, if solving a murder weren’t enough to keep her busy, Rebecca also has to juggle ghosts from her past (in the form of townspeople she knew as a kid), as well as struggling to to the right thing for her mother’s memory while remaining true to her own wishes.

I read mysteries only occassionally, and find I like the far ends of the spectrum – either light and entertaining stories or much more involved literary mysteries (no thrillers or grisly crime fiction for me!).  Skating Around the Law had me smiling and turning pages, a winning combination; red herrings kept me guessing without making me feel manipulated.  I was reminded a bit of the snappy heroine of Sarah Strohmeyer’s Bubbles books which I read several years ago; I’d love to read the further adventures of Rebecca Robbins!

FTC disclosure:  I won this book from the publisher in a fun giveaway on twitter.  @MinotaurBooks asked us to tweet the best costume we’d seen on Halloween and I replied with the fun teabag I saw (clear garbage bag, filled with brown leaves, add an over-sized tag).