Dance for the Alligator

Dance for the Alligator is a window into the minds of key characters in a grisly murder. The story is set in a small town on Florida's west coast. Lovely Knight is a bawdy but beautiful, nude, dancing girl. As Ellie Rossi, she goes home to a quiet, middle-class, lakeside, residential development from a night's work at the local, sleazy, exotic dancing lounge known as the Death Valley Lounge and Liquor. Neil Barnes, a senior detective in the Sheriff's office, Town of Newport, has a difficult time reconciling the story of the lovely wife and mother, with the dancer notorious for her horse-and-rider routine. The guys play galloping music, make neighing sounds, and paw the floor with one foot when I do the horse with my hands on my knees and my ass facing the crowd, blonde ponytail swinging. Alison Cooper, an attractive tourist from London who is also a detective back home, arrives on the scene and is pleased to help Neil with his case. The moment he looked at her, he hoped she would play and even more important part in his life. Meanwhile, a cunning, sociopathic murderer is laughing up his sleeve because his impeccable reputation and his ingenious method of getting rid of the body is shielding him from suspicion. He is depending on his friends, the alligators, but whose side are they on? The first-person presentation of Dance for the Alligator enables the reader to look into the psyche of all the characters, showing places where meanness, fear, jealousy, and aberrant sexual desire hide. What is the clue that finally makes Neil think the unthinkable? In which arena will he find the murderer? Will it be the boisterous, sweaty, smokey, lounge; or the quiet neighborhood around Orange Lake?