Pioneer Press Review for Ruby Red Flaws
“Ruby Red Flaws”: review by Mary Ann Grossman, published in the St. Paul Pioneer Press on Sunday, March 16, 2025
Now that Sheila’s body was covered, I turned to the MC and whispered, “This is obviously a murder, or she wouldn’t have been wired to the swing. The killer could still be somewhere in the building, and they may even be sitting here right now…” — from “Ruby Red Flaws”
It was an ugly sight. The corpse of the swing girl at Ruby Ray’s Supper Club in Lilydale along Highway 13 was wired onto her trapeze, one hand moving back and forth to the horror of the audience. Among the diners are Grayson Dyle, co-owner of a Twin Cities product design firm, and Kate, his bookkeeper girlfriend who works for Ray, the club owner and husband of the dead woman.
When it’s obvious the woman has been murdered, Kate races to the safe to be sure her employer’s big uncut ruby is still there. It isn’t, and law enforcement accuses Kate of the murder and stealing the ruby, found by Ray in Australia and displayed in an old museum next to the supper club.
Dyle, a nice guy who loves Kate, is determined to find the real killer to clear Kate’s name. He has also been asked by his biological father, a Catholic bishop, to look into a priest who is holding cult-like services at the supper club on Sunday mornings. (Dyle and his brother, who had been adopted, learned of their birth parents in “Design Flaw,” first in this series.)
As Grayson looks for the killer, a lot of information comes out about the rogue priest and the ruby of which of which Ray is so proud. Is there a real stone and a fake? Why would anyone kill Ray’s wife, who everyone admired? The supper club isn’t doing very well financially but can Ray sell the property to build condos overlooking the river that require variances?
Grayson is a likable sleuth, trying to do the best he can for everyone. And the author grounds his story in local color from having a little fun with Edina (“cake-eaters”) to a church that looks like St. James Evangelical Lutheran in West St. Paul and a salute to the real-life Diamond Jim’s club in a mall that is now the site of condos.
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Pioneer Press Review for Design Flaws
Design Flaws was one of “9 stellar Minnesota-based mysteries published in 2023”