The Spectacular
A Novel
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4.6 • 10 Ratings
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
From the New York Times Bestselling Author of The Magnolia Palace: A thrilling story about love, sacrifice, and the pursuit of dreams, set amidst the glamour and glitz of Radio City Music Hall in its mid-century heyday.
New York City, 1956: Nineteen-year-old Marion Brooks knows she should be happy. Her high school sweetheart is about to propose and sweep her off to the life everyone has always expected they’d have together: a quiet house in the suburbs, Marion staying home to raise their future children. But instead, Marion finds herself feeling trapped. So when she comes across an opportunity to audition for the famous Radio City Rockettes—the glamorous precision-dancing troupe—she jumps at the chance to exchange her predictable future for the dazzling life of a performer.
Meanwhile, the city is reeling from a string of bombings orchestrated by a person the press has nicknamed the “Big Apple Bomber,” who has been terrorizing the citizens of New York for sixteen years by planting bombs in popular, crowded spaces. With the public in an uproar over the lack of any real leads after a yearslong manhunt, the police turn in desperation to Peter Griggs, a young doctor at a local mental hospital who espouses a radical new technique: psychological profiling.
As both Marion and Peter find themselves unexpectedly pulled in to the police search for the bomber, Marion realizes that as much as she’s been training herself to blend in—performing in perfect unison with all the other identical Rockettes—if she hopes to catch the bomber, she’ll need to stand out and take a terrifying risk. In doing so, she may be forced to sacrifice everything she’s worked for, as well as the people she loves the most.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A dancer joins forces with a psychiatrist to find a bomber targeting New York City in the kinetic latest from Davis (The Magnolia Palace). It's 1956 and dancer Marion Brooks, 19, has just joined the Radio City Rockettes, having defied her father Simon's wishes that she marry her childhood sweetheart and settle down. Though she's sad to not have her dad's approval, Marion is thrilled when her older sister, Judy, agrees to attend the Rockettes' Christmas show. But tragedy strikes when a pipe bomb explodes in the theater, killing Judy. The Big Apple Bomber claims responsibility in a note, in which he also disparages Met Power, where Simon is an executive. Determined to stop the bomber, Marion seeks help from Peter Griggs, a psychiatrist she met on a blind date. Though police officers initially discount Peter's profile of the bomber, one officer acknowledges Peter might be onto something. Emboldened, Marion and Peter surreptitiously search Met Power's records to see if a disgruntled former employee could have set the bombs. As the plot builds to a dramatic climax that sees Marion putting her life at risk, Davis expertly incorporates behind-the-scenes details of the Rockettes, including the intricate choreography of their wooden soldiers number. This page-turner delivers the goods.
