March is finally here, and hopefully warmer weather will soon be upon us. I can’t wait. I’m tired of the cold and the ice. Be that as it may, I have a new book to share with you, this time by author Carmen Amato entitled Hat Dance. You can find out more about the author on her website, on Twitter, and on Amazon. Enjoy!

When Emilia Cruz joined Kurt Rucker, an American who ran El Palacio Réal, one of the most luxurious hotels in the city, she thought it would simply be a night out at a restaurant her salary could never afford. Kurt soon announced that another resort in Belize was interested in him to run their property, and he wanted her to join him to check out the potential offer. Never could she have guessed that before the date was over, losing Kurt would be the least of her problems.

In Carmen Amato’s novel, Hat Dance, we meet Emilia, who works as a detective with the Acapulco Police Department, and who helped close down a casino that was a front for organized crime. Kurt took her to El Tigre, an upscale restaurant, where they ran into the popular mayor of the city Carlota Montoya Perez, and the head of the police Union, Victor Obregon Sosa. As Kurt and Emilia leave, their night comes to halt when a bomb tears through El Tigre.

Seen as a potential assassination attack on the mayor, Emilia quickly finds herself in an escalating game of political theatrics, navigating the inflated egos of the powerful while trying to solve a complex case. Complicating it even further is her assignment to a new partner who is openly disdainful of her, and a police lieutenant who appears incompetent.

Adding to her drama, she agrees to accept a personal case on the side, a missing person’s report which alienates her from her partner even farther. In a city where corruption is rampant, and the powerful are known to be on the take, can Emilia get to the bottom of the case before others are hurt or killed?

What Carmen has done is to create a story rich and powerful. The storyline is dynamic, with several threads woven to create a varied tapestry, of lives intersecting at a specific moment in time, of lives hanging in the balance, all depending on her and a reluctant partner to solve a high-stakes case. I enjoyed this book and I hope you will too.

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