Cancans, Croissants, and Caskets by Mary McHugh

They have an opportunity to dance on a dinner boat in France.  Who doesn't want to go to Paris?  These hoofers aren't going to miss chance to perform in France and sight-see during the day!

Kensington Books and Net Galley allowed me to read this book for review (thank you.) It will be published August 25th, so you can grab a copy then.

Reading this teaches you a bit about Paris, gives you French recipes and serves up a helping of murder, too.  

The ladies are excited to see the sights and look forward to dancing.  They're all attractive, so they love being ogled by the French men.  There's even an American there who is very sexy.  What they didn't expect was for the male owner of the dinner boat to get killed on the upper floor while they were doing their show.

This is not just a tale of murder.  This is a discussion of personalities, relationships, good food and amazing sights.  When another body is found, the police get even more persistent in their questioning.  The female police captain has her eye on one of the girls in the group and while the group reminds Pat of the woman waiting for her at home, she's still going out to dinner with her friend.

It's not until they almost kill the most beautiful member of the dance group that they have any clue who killer is.  But the killer is clever and covers his tracks and says she must have hallucinated the event.  After all, he just put her to bed because she passed out from her drink and she let herself out sometime in the night.  He had an answer for everything.  So how do you prove it otherwise?

It was a good mystery with several side plots.  There were lots of greedy people involved, just like usual.  I'm glad the girls are going home.  Maybe this trip settled some relationship quandaries, you never know.  Only the next book will tell us.