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Post by dem bones on Nov 29, 2018 0:02:23 GMT
Misogynist slasher versus the tutu babes. Judi Miller - Save The Last Dance For Me (Pocket, May 1981) Blurb: An intruder has entered Jennifer's world .... A glamorous world of music and movement and sensual excitement. Now someone is watching Jennifer. He watches her beauty, her grace, her supple young body. He watches the curve of her slender neck as she smiles at her lover. He watches from the shadows and smiles, plotting, imagining ... imagining her dazzling gifts are his alone... imagining her soft warm flesh beneath his hands. He watches with tingling excitement as he watched all those other girls, all those other times. He has waited so long, so patiently. Soon now, Jennifer will dance. For the very last time ... 1960. He's nine-and-a-half years old, ostracised and bullied by his peers as a "pansy," and hates his life. It's all the fault of fat, crazy abusive mother who gets drunk around the clock and dresses him in a pink tutu and pointe shoes, gets him to practice his steps as she always dreamt of becoming a world famous ballerina. "You can't practice enough. If you want to be a star, you have to work harder than everyone else." When she's feeling randy, Mom summons him to her room to play "Doctors ..." That's just the prologue. 1980. New York. Somebody is murdering corps de ballet girls performing in Grischa Zolinsky's new masterpiece, Artemis Visions. A caretaker just found the latest victim, stuffed inside a duffel bag ... To be continued
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Post by andydecker on Nov 29, 2018 17:53:47 GMT
I have to have this! Alone for the cover.
Ballet is a great topic. I like it. Even if I hated Black Swan and havn't the Susperia remake yet.
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Post by dem bones on Nov 29, 2018 21:45:28 GMT
"There was a toe shoe around her neck tied with its own pink satin ribbons." I have to have this! Alone for the cover.
Beautiful, isn't it? Early indications are that Save The Last Dance For Me may even warrant it. If the opening 60 pages are anything to go by we could be looking at some kind of masterpiece of bad taste. Eventful night for our heroine, Jennifer North, nineteen, beautiful, destined for stardom" etc. Somehow she has to break it to fiancée Dr. Richard Kupperman, orthopaedic surgeon, TWENTY-NINE, that they'll have to postpone the wedding. With the ballerina murdering sex-fiend at large (nine victims and counting), Zolinsky has arranged an emergency winter tour of Denmark and Russia. He's even promised her a solo. Richard is sick of playing second fiddle to Jennifer's career. Come to think of it, maybe she's been using him all along. That same night the murderer strikes again. So long, Heather somebody (i.e, Jennifer's best friend). Bang goes Christmas. The city-wide Police manhunt is led by Captain William Hogan and Lieutenant Frank Fazio who despise one another. Perry Jenkins, the maintenance man who discovered Heather's body in the Lincoln Centre, has fled town. He was recently released from prison after serving time for someone else's crime and has no intention of being fitted up again. The only eyewitness was screwing someone he shouldn't ought to so doesn't want to get involved. Fazio is sulking because the press picked up on Hogan's uninspired soubriquet 'The Ballet Killer' over his 'Jack the Slipper.'
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Post by dem bones on Dec 2, 2018 7:44:07 GMT
The Police arrest Ivan Roman, a compulsive thief of leotards and ballet slippers, who knows far more about the murders than has been reported in the press. He confesses to all ten in exchange for a Big Mac. The Mayor - behind in the polls during an election year - is cock-a-hoop, likewise Captain Hogan who funds a booze up for the team out of his own pocket. Fazio insists they've got the wrong crazy but his protests are dismissed as sour grapes by a sneering Hogan who holds a press conference. We've arrested the Ballet Killer! The streets are safe!
Then there's photographer Jerry Turner, a creepy stalker with a thing about young women in tutus. Think we can safely rule him out as a pathetic attention seeker at this stage: he's doing all he can to make us think its him.
Jennifer's all torn up about her row with Richard - so much so that she leaps into bed with mad Max, the house pianist, at the first opportunity, albeit having first downed a skinful. Not that we blame her in light of manipulative lover boy's latest treachery.
On reflection, Jennifer feels kinda pleased with herself for having been unfaithful as it proves she is now a mature woman. She steps into Max's bathroom to shower - and gets a terrible shock!
Things take a turn for The Phantom of the Opera ...
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Post by dem bones on Jul 16, 2019 13:09:43 GMT
"... Then he sniffed the tights ... The smell. The crusty, white substance all over the tights. Semen. It was obvious Roman had masturbated into the these clothes. And the others? Probably ..."My one slight disappointment with Judi Miller's Phantom Of The Soap Opera was it's failure to deliver on a hilariously taste-free prologue. No such complaints with this earlier novel, which is not only dirtier, but far more of a Phantom of the Opera rip off tribute than Phantom of the Soap Opera. For Erik, read the house pianist, whose hobby is abducting ballerinas to mentor for their private last dance. His score to date is ten victims and rising. A significance difference between the two keyboard wizards is that "the Ballet Killer" is no faceache: virtually all the dancers have a crush on him, making his mission a whole lot easier. Blame for the young man's insanity lies with yet another JM abusive "Mama" who wanted a daughter, got stuck with a son, dressed him in a tutu and beat his throughout has childhood for failing to become a rich and famous ballerina. She is currently confined to a closed ward in Manhattan State Hospital where yesterday, at the weekly patient's dance, she beat an old timer's head against a wall for having nice white hair. Mama is aware of what her son is up to - he visits her regularly - and is quietly proud of "the little bastard": At least he didn't turn out a sissy! Picking up where we left off; Captain Hogan is holidaying in Bermuda with wife Barbara when he receives a phone call from the deputy informing him of the disastrous news that Ivan Roman has committed suicide in a cell. There is nothing for it but to fly home and try prevent Fazio's meddling, as Hogan has a nasty feeling "the greaseball" (© Mrs. Hogan) will find evidence that Roman had zero connection with the murders. Meanwhile a frantic Dr. Kupperman has reported his on-off girlfriend's disappearance to the cops. Sure, it was announced all over the news that the Ballet Killer is dead, but something's wrong. No way would Jennifer go AWOL on the eve of the most important night of her career to date (she is due to perform a pas de deux with superstar Russian defector, Yuri Ivanov, in a gala performance of Zolinsky's first full-length ballet in four decades). Fazio investigates. Down in the basement, the killer warns an exhausted Jennifer that unless she meets his exacting standards she'll be lynched by her soiled leotard ... The climax at the NY State theatre is suitably dramatic as mad mother and madder son team up for a very public revenge on he they hold responsible for all their woes. This one really should have been adapted as a cheap and nasty made for TV two-parter.
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Post by dem bones on Jul 13, 2023 18:04:21 GMT
Enjoyed Save the Last Dance For Me after my own warped fashion, wasn't particularly enamoured of Phantom of the Soap Opera. Let's see how we get on with this 260+ pager. Judi Miller - Catch Me If You Can (Dell, Aug. 1986) Blurb: FIRST, THERE IS DEMURE BARBARA. THEN, SEDUCTIVE ENID. AND FINALLY, PRISCILLA...
On the cobblestones of London's East End, on an Upper East Side Manhattan street corner, in an airport lavatory, the savagely murdered bodies lie. Scotland Yard is looking for a powerful man. Two savvy female cops in New York are sure they're after a woman. But the killer is cunningly disguised, cleverly hidden. Who would suspect her bloody rage? And when she raises the butcher knife to kill again, who will stop her?Begins with the murder of Johanna Haydn, a tour guide at Windsor Castle, eviscerated from behind as she rushes to meet boyfriend Stephen Knight in the Red Lion, Mayfair. Knight is furious in his grief. Tonight was the night he was going to propose. When the police catch the sick creep did this, he swears he will kill the bastard! The next morning, Barbara Hargrave, a former child star — she played "Cookie" in popular daytime soap, Tomorrow is Another Day until unceremoniously let go at twelve) — quits her Mayfair flat for lodgings at Mr & Mrs Lockwood's house in Hammersmith. Barbara has been suffering from crippling headaches and blackouts, though a psychiatrist assures her it's nothing to worry about. More concerning is the bloody great bloodstained knife she finds in a bedside drawer, with no idea where it came from. Mrs Lockwood, a voyeur, who only takes in lodgers to have someone to spy on, has seen it too. A second slaying, this one on the underground near Knightsbridge, the victim again carved up from behind. Talk of a new Jack the Ripper. Meanwhile in New York, detectives Tammy Zuckerman and Carolyn Kealing investigate the murder of a mystery beauty in white, attacked by a knife fiend on Park Avenue, and "if Park Avenue isn't safe, where is?" Up to p70. Author evidently working to the Solar Pons map of London. The prying landlady is giving a good account of herself.
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Post by andydecker on Jul 14, 2023 8:02:38 GMT
This is a great cover. Deceptingly 'normal' at the first glance, but there is a lot going on if you look twice.
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Post by dem bones on Jul 15, 2023 17:08:20 GMT
This is a great cover. Deceptingly 'normal' at the first glance, but there is a lot going on if you look twice. The Lisa Falkenstern cover painting for Save the Last Dance For Me (top of thread) would be my pick of the three. Shortly before Barbara Hargrave boards a plane to New York for a psychiatrist appointment, air stewardess Julia Davidson is sliced up in the ladies' room at Heathrow. Dr. Waters has worked with patients with similar neurosis, but never before a genuine case of split personalities (three and counting). Over two sessions he's met Barbara, the troubled ex-soap star; Enid, an incorrigible tease, all dressed up like a high class hooker; and the dominant Dana, of whom the other two are unaware. Waters has already begun hawking around tapes of the sessions to name authors with a view to collaborating on the next Sybil or Three Faces of Eve. While Barbara's away, 'Lockey' noses around in her room, stubbing a toe on the handle of a gory butchers knife protruding beneath a step. Another woman cut down on a New York street, this time in broad daylight. Tammy Zuckerman and Carolyn Kealing are promoted to the Ripper team above fat slob colleague, first Detective Hank Patuto. Furious at having his case stolen, Patuto swears to get even with the lousy, conniving broads. As has been the case since her "Cookie" days, Barbara confides in her rock, Eva, who first suggested she seek help over her blackouts. After a third, unscheduled session with Waters — he's hit the jackpot with this one! — she boards the flight back to London in happier mood. He's going to cure her! P. 150. Quite the trashy treat.
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Post by Michael Connolly on Jul 16, 2023 14:26:20 GMT
Author evidently working to the Solar Pons map of London. That's funny.
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Post by dem bones on Jul 19, 2023 15:45:00 GMT
We now know it is a fourth personality, Priscilla, commits the murders, the latest being that of seventeen-year-old Dawn Snow, a runaway newly arrived in New York with dreams of becoming a professional dancer.
Barbara is falling in love with a Brooklyn librarian, Jonathan Segul. Resentful of her happiness — and appalled at her choice in men — the obnoxious Enid personality surfaces to scare him off.
Impatient with the police investigation into the continent spanning 'Jane the Ripper' murders, relatives of the deceased Stephen Knight, Annie Davidson, and Brian Harrington band together as vigilante group Three Against Victimization. Knight suggests they raise awareness of their cause with a bombing campaign. Fortunately, the trio confine the protest to a demo outside Scotland Yard, chanting "Don't just sit there — catch the Ripper!"
"A cheer rose from the crowd. "Stop these senseless killings!" someone screeched, and the mob was brought to a near-riot pitch. It was a newsworthy event in that no one had ever protested against Scotland Yard before. No one had ever complained, either."
DI Douglas Cameron of the Yard phones Captain Fulani, his NYPD counterpart, to raise the alarming possibility that they may both be hunting the same killer. Both are of the opinion that their culprit is a man in drag, which makes it all the more confusing when the next victim — struck down on a Hammersmith street — is a "he-she ... like Boy George."
Having convinced the press that no woman would be physically capable of slicing a victim neck to sternum, Hank Patuto is promoted above the discredited Zuckerman and Kealing on the task force.
Barbara is by now flitting between countries as frequently as she does personalities. At last, she confides in Jonathan, who commits to the long haul, come what may. Meanwhile, Priscilla decides it is time to destroy a potential threat to her security.
Should you have read and enjoyed Save the Last Dance for Me, I've no hesitation in recommending Catch Me ... as more of the gloriously tacky same.
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