Dancing in the Dark

For Diane Mayfield, the last few months of her life have been spent trying to keep her children, Michelle and Anthony, on an even keel. After her husband was sentenced to prison for his part in the financial upheaval of a company who cooked its books, she's been the sole parent and money-maker in a family that once had it all. Her position with KEY News as a correspondent for its Hourglass newsmagazine forces her to give up the family's vacation to the Grand Canyon and instead haul her kids and her 17-years younger sister, Emily, to the New Jersey seashore town of Ocean Grove. Her assignment? Interview Leslie Patterson, a woman who police believe "cried wolf" about her recent disappearance.

Leslie has a past that includes therapies for show more anorexia and harming herself physically, and the police are reluctant to take her claims seriously. Leslie states that she was abducted by an unknown attacker, and although not raped, was forced to dance with the man over a period of days before a security guard found her, bound and gagged, on the grounds of the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association. Orignally a religion-based commune type establishment, the Association meets every year on Ocean Grove's shore to spen the summer in their tents.

But as another girl disappears, both the local police and Diane start to believe that something more sinister is at work than a trouble young woman staging her own disappearance. As Diane delves deeper and deeper into the mystery, her own family becomes a target for the disturbed individuals that are harassing the tranquility of this once calm sea-side town.

Mary Jane Clark has deftly penned another entertaining thriller. Her characters are all true-to-life and believable, and will have you turning pages until you figure out the mystery. show less

I wasn’t particularly thrilled with this. It wasn’t bad, per se, it just didn’t excite me. The mystery is well-enough constructed that I was surprised by who the bad guy was, but I never really connected with Diane or her kids. She was always the victim, and I just found nothing about her to be the least bit interesting, not even her jailed husband. Her daughter was even worse — stereotype, through and through.

The part that really rubbed me wrong was the undertone the entire book had about eating disorders. It felt like the author had an agenda to push, and it was really forced. If you want to teach us something about eating disorders, please don’t make every teenaged girl in the story have one.

This was the first Mary Jane show more Clark I’ve read, and I don’t think I’ll jump at reading another. show less

Diane Mayfield, correspondent for a fictional tv news magazine program, was all set to take her son and daughter to the Grand Canyon for a much-anticipated vacation, until her boss insisted she go to the Jersey shore instead to report on a girl who police believed had pretended to have been kidnapped in order to get attention. As the story unfolded, all was not as it seemed . . . or was it? This is a pretty-good mystery, not the best one you'll ever read, but entertaining enough to make the effort worthwhile. It doesn't quite live up to the "can't put it down" billing advertised on the front-cover blurb, but it's not a mystery you'll get tired of before you're finished either. 3 1/2 out of 5 stars is my rating.

I found the mystery Dancing in the Dark to be an adequate story in this genre. It wasn't spell-binding, but it was sufficient. It was a quick read for me -- I read it in a day; that shows it held me captive enough to plow through it quickly. That also means it was an "escapism" book for me -- one I can read quickly, not expecting to retain anything for long. I will likely read this book again in a few years and will not remember much of the story from the first reading.

Clark writes mysteries but I felt like she was trying to teach me something else along the way very badly. One of the main characters in the story suffered from anorexia and cutting as well as a few others. Clark didn't go into the the issues in enough depth to make that part more than feel tacked on to me. I'll give it 2 starts because I didn't want to not find out who did it. If all her books are like this one I doubt I will read another.

Dancing In The Dark by Mary Jane Clark ISBN 9780312481172

This book is all about a troubled young girl that goes missing. When she is found three days latter no one seems to believe her story until it happens again. Diane a Key News Reporter has to cancel her trip to the Grand Canyon and instead head to Ocean to interview the lost girl who everyone believes “Cried Wolf” What she finds there is more than what she bargained for. I found that this book takes a good look at what a troubled teen will go though to get the attention they need to feel loved and accepted. I would recommend this to anyone who likes crime, mystery, drama.

good mystery @ newscaster

Trying to mix business with pleasure, KEY News correspondent Diane Mayfield has brought her children and her sister to the New Jersey shore town of Ocean Grove to investigate a story on "girls who cry wolf" for the season premiere of Hourglass, television's highly rated news magazine. Diane lands an exclusive interview with a troubled young woman whose tale of being abducted and held against her will for three terrifying days had been disbelieved by the authorities. No sooner does Diane finish taping the interview, though, than a second victim disappears. The small community, already in the grip of a record heat wave, is now wracked by fear and terror—no one knows who could be next. With only the first victim show more as eyewitness, Diane and the police turn to her for clues. But it may be too late to save Diane and her loved ones from the mortal danger that lurks in Ocean Grove. show less