 Renée Gardner's books
The Tap Dancing Gorilla: A Sutton Place Mystery
PublishAmerica
Date: November, 2005
ISBN: 1-4137-7471-1
Read an excerpt (PDF)
"Dancing Killa' Gorilla On The Loose! The telephone rings seconds after senior citizen Kitty Larsen reads that bizarre headline to her husband, Charlie Blumenfaux, the world-famous Seer to the Stars. The call is from her niece Cynthia Collins. Cyn babbles that she is the only person who knows that the Upper East Side victims of the homicidal ape were members of the health club where she works. She fears that when the Olympians, as the members of Club Olympus are known, learn of that connection, they will resign from the club as fast as rats desert a sinking ship and that the club will be hurled into bankruptcy. Kitty refuses to become a detective until she realizes that if Club Olympus folds, her niece will be out of a job - AND her employment agency will have to find yet another job for her employment challenged niece.
Armed with a fake business card that implies she is a reporter for Prattle, a nation-wide tabloid magazine, Kitty learns from the victims' friends and relatives that though they never socialized at Club Olympus, they were childhood friends and when they were teenagers they were involved in a fatal car crash. Drugs, a suicide, a long-lost child, and a frightening quote from King Lear become important clues to the killer's identity.
Kitty encounters ever-changing suspects and motives as the hunt for the killer takes her from a cocktail-party style wake to a small town in Pennsylvania to a meeting with a prominent plastic surgeon at his ultra chic Park Avenue office. Kitty's list of suspects shrinks by one when the club's publicist is bludgeoned to death. The owner of Club Olympus, who Kitty suspects is having an affair with Cyn, postpones the club's impending masquerade party to allow the cops to search the premises for clues to the identity of the publicist's killer.
Kitty's darling Shi Tzu, Tootie, leads her to a deserted tenement where a homeless man claims to have seen a woman change into a gorilla suit. A few days later, the unfortunate man becomes the killa' gorilla's fourth victim.
Before the heart-pounding conclusion to The Tap Dancing Gorilla at the long delayed party, Kitty learns the meaning of her husband's frightening warning, "Beware of the bells;" a wrong committed half a lifetime ago is corrected - and Kitty nearly loses her life.
Learn more about The Dog Took the Cat, the second book in the Sutton Place Mystery series.
What they are saying about The Tap Dancing Gorilla
The Tap Dancing Gorilla is a charming New York mystery with characters that are believable, a plot that keeps you guessing and prose that keeps you entertained. I welcome this new author who has written an amateur sleuth mystery like an old master. Bring me more!
Bonnie Claeson,
The Black Orchid Bookshop, New York City
You might not find the idea of a tap dancing gorilla to be sinister until you read Renée Gardner's novel - and you SHOULD read it for the delight of the plot, for the characters, and for the witty writing. … The Tap Dancing Gorilla progresses in lively fashion from murder to detection to climatic mayhem. The book is a fun, engrossing, must-read mystery with a breakthrough (no longer young) protagonist in Kitty Larsen, a woman who has done just about everything in her adventurous life and who is now ready to take on tracking down evil.
G. Miki Hayden, 2004 Edgar® winner for "The Maids" and
2002 Agatha and Anthony nominee and Macavity winner for "Writing the Novel"
Renée Gardner has written an utterly delightful, first-rate mystery. The Tap Dancing Gorilla: A Sutton Place Mystery sparkles with the effervescence of an old fashion whodunit. With dazzling details of Manhattan, humorous banter and a parade of quirky characters, it is a thoroughly enjoyable read.
Marianna Heusler, Edgar® Nominee
for "The Night the Penningtons Vanished"
The Tap Dancing Gorilla is a delicious mix of fear and fun, chills and chuckles, with sprinkles of fascinating Manhattan lore tossed in. I loved it!
Robin Hathaway
Dr. Fenimore and Jo Banks series
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