Kista Tucker
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Meg Wiler finds her 12-year-old student, Abby Stoffel, practicing an adage in the red studio. It’s 8:30 in the evening, Abby’s mother is missing, and what Meg sees in Abby’s face draws her into volunteering to take Abby home. That decision turns out to be a trap conceived by a monster.
Along a lonely stretch of road, masked butchers in a Ford F-150 ram Meg’s car into a ditch, smash her windows, and haul Abby to their truck as Meg fights and screams for Abby. The culprits drag Meg to the road, wrap her in a thick binding, then dump her in the trunk of her car.
Before the incident, life was a struggle, but nothing like it is now. Meg Wiler, a professional dancer and choreographer, cherishes what she does and works strenuously to enrich the lives of others. But she long ago discovered that a dance career does not provide enough income to pay the bills. So she moonlights with her uncle in the family business a well-established detective agency.
Since Abby’s kidnapping Meg learns the killers had already abducted Abby’s mother. Early in the investigation of the now labeled Stoffel Case, Meg discovers the police have labeled her a “person of interest,” and are about to arrest her for the brutal kidnapping, rape, and murder of Abby and her mother. Why? Along with her uncle and the detective agency, Meg struggle to expose the murderers and save herself.
Meg’s Dance evokes a whirlwind as if Patricia Cornwell, in her Scarpetta Series, hangs out with Fredrik Backman, in his Beartown series. What’s more, Tucker states, “I feel a connection with David Lynch and the way he brings story to life–especially the way he uses time, space, and light. My choreography shares several of his sensibilities, as does my writing. My work is not “like” his, but frequently exhibits a twisted, backward feeling, similar to Lynch’s. Aspects of time, space, and possibly lighting–do exist.” The areas of DANCE and CRIME are intertwined throughout the novel.
“The author is an award-winning professional dancer, choreographer, and film maker who utilizes real-life experience when writing about artistic excellence and advancing a non-profit dance company. She also loves a great mystery.