> It had been ten years since Lindy Haggerty and her dance shoes parted ways. But then a desperate call from an old friend rescues Lindy from her suburban grind and gets her back into the spandex and chiffon of the Jeremy Ash Dance Company. As rehearsal director, saving a troubled show is one thing, but she has no idea just how doomed the production is...until the backstage tantrums, demands, and threats turn a simple pas de deux into a rather scandalous pas de morte...

Enter the past-her-prime diva, Carlotta Devine, still drunk on faded applause. Less proficient at grande pli‚s than grand entrances, she's every dancer, director, and stage manager's worst nightmare. And as sure as the blinding drive that made her a star, nothing is going to keep "The Divine Swine" from the stage. Even if it kills her.

So it was a pity that no one saw her final performance when it reached a smashing crescendo in her dressing room-except for the less-than-gushing-fan who used a stage prop to give the Queen of Comebacks a fatal blow to her head. While Carlotta's last theatrical gesture may be getting raves from her troupe, Lindy's not so taken with cold-blooded murder. But sorting out a theater full of suspects, each with their own just cause, will be harder than getting Martha Graham back on the boards. Especially with a murderer still lingering in the wings.

And as Lindy dances closer to the truth, she makes a startling discovery: Carlotta's murder was a mere dress rehearsal for something deadlier to come. A shadowy killer has scheduled a final curtain call—and Lindy is taking center stage.