I absolutely loved this book! It was so refreshing and a really good crime novel. Also the cover is stunning

Death of a Dancing Queen is a riveting fast-paced murder mystery/thriller with an intriguing and gutsy female main character at the helm of the story.

What made Death of a Dancing Queen stand out from a sea of crime novels were the victims and their backgrounds, in addition to the novel's protagonist and her family circumstances. It was interesting to read how Billie Levine (the novel's main character) navigates the news of her mother's Alzheimer's diagnosis and handles the fear that she also might have inherited the disease as she works on the case and tries to be there for her family.

As I previously mentioned, the murder victims of the novel and their backgrounds were intriguing. I enjoyed how the author used true crime podcasts and the interest they generated and worked it into the plot. Although Death of a Dancing Queen is not exactly a revolution in the crime/mystery/thriller genre it will be an entertaining read for readers who enjoy fast-paced murder mysteries, filled with family secrets, organised crime and strong, gutsy and flawed female main characters.

I read an eARC of this book so thank you to the author, publisher and NetGalley.

This is a crime novel set in New Jersey where we follow a private investigator in her early twenties who has taken over her grandfather’s P.I. Business. She takes a case to look into the disappearance of a client’s girlfriend. The case is stirring up some old hurts for her but she’s desperate for the money. As she investigates she not only has to face people from her past but she also starts to see connections to an earlier case with a dancer who died decades earlier.

This was pretty entertaining. The first half definitely picked up the pace and I enjoyed that as everything started to come together and information was revealed.

What made this novel feel a bit different was all the pressures that our MC Billie is facing. Her mother has Alzheimer’s and she can’t be left alone. She lives with her mother, her brother and her Grandfather. However her brother is pressuring her to put their mother in a care home as he wants to move out. Her Grandfather is becoming increasingly unreliable due to his drinking. An old flame comes back into her life. She’s also struggling to make ends meet and has anxieties about her health. These surrounding pressures gave us some real insight into who Billie is as a character with how she dealt with them.

I really enjoyed this and if you like any kind of detective show I think you would like it too. In Death of a Dancing Queen we follow Billie a rookie P.I hired to find a missing college student, but the case has some eerie similarities to a murder that took place in 1991. There’s a lot going on in Billies personal life and her case just keeps snowballing into something bigger. We have rival gang families, stolen diamonds, returning ex boyfriends and more. I liked Billie as a character and although she made some mistakes (why does she never have backup?!) she was pretty savvy. She’s described as being similar to Veronica Mars, which I haven’t seen but the comparison makes me want to watch it. The overall story did have a lot to it, and a lot of moving pieces but I thought it all wrapped up nicely. Nothing felt too extraneous and I’m excited for the next book now that we have all this groundwork out of the way.

Thanks to Datura Books, NetGalley and Kimberly G. Giarratano for this e-copy!

This novel reminded me of Veronica Mars, one of my all-time favorite TV shows, which was a delightful surprise. However, despite featuring another young female PI, Billie stands out as a unique character distinct from Veronica. The story feels original and never veers into fanfiction territory.

The main character, Billie, captivated me, making me love this novel even more. Beyond her, the mystery presented in the story is compelling—I was genuinely intrigued by the disappearance of the woman and found myself guessing until the very end.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this mystery thriller and would highly recommend it to anyone who appreciates amateur sleuth characters like Billie. I eagerly await more books in this series.

The suspense of this book was through the roof!
Loved the writing style and the original plot. It kept me guessing and second guessing about my theories till nearly the end. Great full for this to have been sent to me as a physical copy as I have already lent it to a friend for them to read.

I have to say that I fell head over heels in love with this tough, smart, funny and vulnerable private investigator. Billie Levine works for her grandfather’s PI Agency and she seems like a natural, somehow able to read people and follow the most complicated clues. What I loved most about her though was that she’s a full character. Lots of female investigators and cops are workaholics, wedded to their work and driven by the case to take risks and put themselves in danger. Billie may be a great investigator, but her main driver is getting paid and being able to have her mother looked after. Her mother has Alzheimer’s so Billie and her brother are trying to look after her at home. The struggles and realities of looking after a loved one with dementia were really well written and felt authentic. It was nice to see a detective being so pragmatic about her work, yes she wants to do a good job, but at the end of the day it’s a way of keeping a roof over their heads. It was great to see that real push and pull that women often feel between work and home. There was also a great authenticity to the family’s Jewish faith, it didn’t feel out of place or tacked on. It was an essential part of who this family are and how they relate to each other. The case is not an easy one. They are contracted to do some investigations into the son of a gangster who is facing serious jail time. Tommy’s girlfriend was found murdered in his garage. Obviously his father is keen to find any evidence that could see Tommy acquitted. Obviously this is a risky case, gangsters are not known for their openness and there are times when she is in danger. I always felt that Billie could handle herself in this world and it was a world I’d love to hear more about.

Me likey! I sure hope that this novel is the first in the series. I love so much about it - the noir atmosphere, which feels so real and authentic and there the light and the dark parts are tightly knotted into one working world of both criminals and honest, hardworking people; of both crime and family. The main character, newbie female private investigator Billie, who is so troubled with her family, her possible pre-condition of early Alzheimer (like her mother), her star-crossed love for man she really should not love and her so honest aspirations to solve the mystery of a murdered student and maybe even the dead exotic dancer from the years ago.
There are some aspects I do not like as well - namely that the old crime is based on very modern preconditions. I do not like the in-fashion topics, I find them clichey.
But otherwise - the heroine and her personal story is catchy, she is troubled and earnest enough to get my attention (I like my characters being real and messy) and I like her complicated personal life, too. I simply want more of her - even if I found the murder mystery being a bit boring towards the end. I do not care about the dead dancing queens, but I really do care about Billie.

This book was absolutely creepy and twisty, and I really enjoyed it! It hooked me in from the first few chapters!

Billie takes over her grandpa's investigation services company. For her first case, when a college kid arrives with a missing girlfriend case, she thinks that it's just a girlfriend avoiding this nutcase.

Layer by layer, Billie discovers many complications in the case. She isn't just missing but dead. And the case involves many bigshots. Along with this, Billie is pretty sure that Jasmine got killed because of a secret mission of hers to solve an old dancing queen's death case.

TBH, I would've stopped reading this in the first half. I couldn't keep track of characters and the story. It was messy. But then I got a grip, from 40%, on the story. Second half was good. It felt like there was more stable flow of the story. However, writing was a bit off for me.

I would give this 3.5 stars. The climax is good. No one would've actually expected. Overall, a decent one-time read.

Thank you Netgalley and publishers for providing me with an ARC.

This was an okay book, but unfortunately it wasn't really for me. There was a lot to take in, a lot of info dumping and I had to give up less than half way through.

When the case of a disappeared true crime podcaster is dropped in soon to be PI Billie Levine’s lap, she initially assumes that the girl is just hiding out from her boyfriend, that perhaps his drug use ran her off. But, said boyfriend was able to pay her full retainer no questions asked and she does need the money badly and business has not been as good as she had hoped. So off she goes, searching for a girl who might not want to be found, all in hopes of helping support her Alzheimer’s stricken mother. But the case is no where near as simple as that when the search for a missing girl turns into a search for who might have wanted to murder her. With the boyfriend as the police’s obvious suspect and things heating up between the two local crime families, will Billie be able to solve the case or will she go the way of the podcaster? And how does the thirty-some year cold murder of a club dancer tie into any of this?

Kimberly G. Giarratano’s Death of a Dancing Queen feels like it should be the fourth or fifth book in my next favorite detective series. But as the first book in a series it feels odd, like the balance is off. Like there is a ton of build up for these characters that is missing and I should know them better.

That actually feels like a good place to start because I had more than a touch of trouble getting into Death of a Dancing Queen early on. All of Billie’s worries over her mother’s Alzheimer’s, and the high likelihood that she would also wind up with Alzheimer’s in the future, it was just a lot for a book where this character is being introduced. Likewise, it could feel like the whole thing with Billie’s bad boy ex, Aaron, and the history between their families and the history with his family’s organization and the other gangs was just too much. All this back story and character history, it interrupted the story pretty badly for me. It got to the point where more and more seemed to focus in on Billie’s messy love life and the dangers the case is posing to her to the exclusion of the current case or the cold case.

And that ultimately made the book really easy to put down and walk away from. While there were interesting characters, many of them also just felt like short hand character types. The detective not the love interest. The bad boy ex who probably has a heart of gold under all that crime. The exhausted brother who just wants to have a life of his own. The alcoholic former cop, also the over protective grandfather. There might have been room to develop some of them more, but I found myself just not caring after a point. I got so tired of reading about how hot and dangerous Aaron Goff was while the book refused to move forward with either murder mystery. Tired of reading Billie worrying about when her brain was going to start failing her. Plus, the ending just felt like it was not well seeded enough to work. It felt like it cheated on some of the mystery solving in this mystery novel, for both cases.

I feel like Giarratano has to be a proficient writer, and it feels clear that she spent a lot of time developing Billie and her whole situation. Death of a Dancing Queen feels like it has been iterated on and reworked several times. But I feel like that is part of the problem I have with it. It feels like Giarratano has worked on this book and the impact she wanted from Billie’s life to the point that it stopped being an entry point to a series, that she knows these characters so well that she has forgotten that the reader is just meeting them. And that lands Death of a Dancing Queen with a two out of five. The idea was promising, but the execution left me cold.

Death of a Dancing Queen – Kimberly G. Giarratano



I was given a copy of this book through Net Galley in order to provide an honest review.

Kimberly G. Giarratano is an American author who writes mysteries for teens and adults. She is a former librarian and is currently an instructor at SUNY Orange County Community College and reviews for BookPage.



Bill Levine works for her grandfather’s private investigation firm and does what she can to make ends meet and help her brother care for their mother suffering from Alzheimer's. Life is hard and stressful and most days everything is a constant battle and work is hard to find.

So, when a junkie college kid, Tommy Russo, seeks her out to help find his missing girlfriend, and with wads of cash, thanks to a wealthy family – who is she to pass this job up.

But this quickly turns into something much more than Billie could have bargained for. What should have been a simple case of a girlfriend hiding away until the junkie boyfriend gets the message turns into the cover up of a cold case – the death of a dancing queen.

Which consequently means Billie must deal with her criminal ex – heir to an empire that has become embroiled in her case and with ties to the cold case, the junkie’s girlfriend took upon herself to look into. Now Billie must find out the truth about the death of a dancing queen and why it ended in the murder of an innocent girl – all while keeping herself and her family afloat. Easier said than done when everyone has secrets they are trying to keep buried.



“Death of a Dancing Queen” is a riveting crime thriller that grabs a hold of you as soon as you turn the first page and won't let you go until you’ve turned the last one. This whole story from start to finish was a tragically beautiful tale. Billie is a relatable character that I really felt for, the struggles she was going through, how hard she was punishing and pushing herself. The case really seemed to bring up a lot of personal struggles, so it was good to see her work through it and uncover the truth. And the story of the dancer that was tragically murdered all those years ago was just absolutely heartbreaking – it was really something to see the truth come out the way it did after all the time that had passed.

A book that stands out from the crowd. The characters and the setting are written exceptionally well.

Belinda "Billie" Levine is a recent college graduate that works as an unlicensed PI for her ex cop grandfather's detective agency. She gets hired by a wealthy college drug addict to help find his girlfriend, Jasmine who strips in the evenings at a local club. This book was a fast paced, small town mystery. I really enjoyed the sassy, independent nature of Billie. There were multiple layers and connecting cords to the story that really have you trying to figure out if it all ties together and how the pieces fit in. The writing was good and overall I really liked this book, Excited to see if this turns into a series!

Thank you NetGalley and Datura for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

The plot is as deep and dark as it gets, multi-layered with 'who knew what when?' as the strands come together and the finer details get filled in. This is an absolutely compelling, gripping book full of mystery and suspense. Only a few authors can write deeply involving psychological drama of the very highest quality.

The E-Book could be improved and more user-friendly, such as links to the chapters, no significant gaps between words some text written has been typed in red and a cover for the book would be better. It is very document-like instead of a book. A star has been deducted because of this.

This is a first for me by the author and one I enjoyed and I would read more of their work. Thank you very much to the author, publisher and Netgalley for this ARC.

3.5/5.

This thriller had me going in circles and in the end had to get pen and paper out to be able to formulate my theory of what had happened and then to see i was right. This engaged me from page one and would love to see more stories following the main characters and how she develops her techniques

This is a new series, featuring a great new detective. Billie Levine takes over her grandfather's detective agency -- nothing fancy, she mostly sets up shop at a table in the neighborhood deli. She gets involved in a case involving a long-dead exotic dancer and finds her own life at risk in the process. I hope this goes on to be a mulitiple book series, and I look forward to recommending this title.

It would appear that to be a fictional Private Investigator you must have something that you are addicted to be it booze, drugs, women, glue. The options seem endless, but Kimberly G. Giarratano’s Death of a Dancing Queen is the first time I have come across a PI addicted to life. Billie Levine lives with the knowledge of her mother’s early onset Alzheimer's, knowing that the disease may be hereditary. One way to combat it; eat well, exercise, and no alcohol. More clean living than the average gumshoe, Billie may be improving her chances of living to an old age, but her plans won’t stop a bullet with her name on it.

Since leaving university Billie has worked for her Grandfather’s PI business as the trainee, but really the main investigator. It allows her to work her own hours and share the care for her mother. She thought it would be a life of trailing divorcees and lost pets, but when a missing person case she is investigating ends in a dead body, the work is about to get dangerous. Billie finds herself working between the cracks of the New Jersey police, local Jewish Mafia, white supremacists and perhaps worst of all, crime podcasters. Can Billie solve the murder of a young student and what does it all have to do with the death of a dancer decades earlier?

With so much crime fiction out there, you must write something a little different to stand out, but also stick to some of the tropes that makes the genre so popular. Giarratano has done an impressive job of creating a modern noir story and giving it enough uniqueness. Most of that comes from the character of Billie, a young Jewish woman in a job that she was not initially destined for. There are even more layers, her ill mother, but more importantly to Billie’s psyche and behaviour, her own fear of early onset Alzheimer's. We are used to reading about a PIs obsession with booze or a Femme Fatale, but Billie’s obsession with health and good eating works just as well. She is as broken as any boozed-up PI, and it informs the story.

This is the first Billie Levine Mystery, and you feel like there could be plenty more. Being number one, it has a lot of set up to the characters and locations. I enjoyed learning about Billie, her family, and her relationships. Like any crime noir these relationships are complex and tread a grey line. Billie wants to do good, but she does not always know the good people. Billie is new to the murder game, so the story is engineered to her life – her old university, her old boyfriend etc. It works perfectly well in this foundation novel to develop Billie’s skills and reputation. I do think that her next case may have to be a little more out of her local bubble to be realistic.

Dancing Queen has intriguing characters, but also a great modern take on classic noir. The mystery is an interesting one; two cases, one fresh, the other cold. Like the genre demands these two cases will begin to intersect as the story progresses. There are plenty of twists and turns on the way, the conclusion is very well done, giving enough for some people to work out what happened, but leaving most of us pleasantly surprised.

This is the brilliant start of a new series and I can't wait to read the next as it's entertaining, gripping, and it was love at first page.
The author is a talented storyteller and deliver a twisty story featuring Billie, a clever and intriguing character, and the right level of humour.
Love it, highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this arc, all opinions are mine