Loves Music, Loves To Dance Essay, Research Paper
Main Characters Darcy Scott She is a young, attractive, successful decorator living in New York City. She gets involved with the personal ads as a favor to her friend and it Takes a deadly turn when her best friend Erin is killed. After her death Darcy makes it her mission to find her killer. Charles North Charles is a childlike character that has an atattchment to attractive, well-educated, urban women. His obssesion started 15 years ago when he fell in love with a girl named Nan. He kills 9 girls over the course of his 15 years and swears Darcy and Erin will be his last. Erin Kelley Darcy s best friend and one of Charley s victims. She also got Involved with Darcy and the personal ads and that was how she met Charley. Nona Roberts Nona is a TV producer and friend of Darcy and Erin. She is the one that initially encorages the girls to answer the personal ads for a story she is doing. Vincent D Ambrosio FBI agent that is presented with Erin s case by Darcy and Nona. Michael Nash – Nash is a doctor and it is eventually discovered that he is also Charley s alter ego. Charley / Michael is the killer. Doug Fox Doug is a workaholic. He enjoys spending his spare time as a bad husband, absentee father, and womanizer. He married his wife, Susan, for her money and often metions that he is no longer attracted to her. Nan Sheridan – Charley’s first victim and love the love of hi life. He continues to blame Nan for the deaths of all the other women. Chris Sheridan – Nan’s brother who helps Darcy solve this mystery. In the end Darcy and Chris also grow a liking toward eachother. Setting The basic setting of this novel is New York City, but there are also several scnes in the rural areas surrounding New York. The only times that those areas are eally ever mentioned is either when the Fox family is talked about, scenes in Charlie s cabin or when Nan is killed. Plot This novel, by Mary Higgins Cark, takes place in New York over the course of a 15 year period. It is about a man named Charley and his obssessive killing spree. It all started with his first love, Nan. It was the day after her 19th birthday when he decided to surprise her with a pair of dancing shoes he had bought her. She was unpleasantly surprised with his visit and when she refused his gift he strangles her to death leaving her running shoe on one foot and his dancing slipper on the other. Unfortuantly his killing spree does not stop there, and nine innocent lives are taken before he is caught. The next character we are introduced to is Darcy Scott. She is a strong willed and intellegent woman living in New York City. She is also the product of two every famous parents. As a favor to her TV producer friend, Nona, her and her best friend Erin get involved with the scene of the personal ads. Erin and Darcy had been college room mates and friends for many years.
They came from very different backgrounds, but had the common bond of loving their work. They begin to think of the personal ads as a game. Each girl is going on about 5 or 6 dates a week and they are setting eachother up with people. Little do they know that Charley is also plotting to meet people through these ads and both of them end up making dates with him. Erin is the first to meet Charley and that is where everything takes a turn for the worse. She goes on her date and is never heard of again. Several days later a homeless man finds the body of a young woman, wearing on boot and one dancing shoe, on a pier and she is possitively identified as Erin. This is the day where Darcy’s mission begins. For the next few chapters we are introduced to several characters that seem to be used as a diversion. All of these people make you question who Charley’s alter ego may in fact be. There are many refrences to Doug Fox as being the killer, and even his wife suspects him at one point, but in time Darcy is the one to discover the identity of the killer. Through out this time Darcy dates every person that Erin had seen the week that she dissappeared, but she eventually goes out with Michael Nash. She grows a liking to him and starts to think that maybe he is someone that really understands her. She starts to trust him but one night he takes her to his cottage. It is there that he plays the music and asks her to dance. She declines at first and quickly changes the subject. Then, as she is walking across the room she feels something under her shoe. She ignores it at first, but eventually leans over to discover that it is Erin’s ring. This is when her panic begins. Charley goes through his usual act, he asks her to try on a pair of dancing shoes he had bought for her as a gift and asks her to dance. She accepts his offer and plays along with his act. As they are dancing she starts to initiate a conversation. It is then that he admits to her that he killed Erin. He also tells her that his father killed his mother and recived the death penalty and that he killed his adopted parents as well. This is the moment that he stops and tells her that it is now her turn. This is where the struggle begins, and he jokingly gives her a ten second head start to try and get away. She runs for the door but it is locked. She presses a button marked “PANIC” and all she hears is a hollow mocking laugh echo through the room. Her time is now up. She tries to run for the stairs but the high heeled shoes are now her enemy on the slippery floor. He finally catches her and as his hands firmly grasp her neck they hear six shots ring out and Vincent, Nona and Chris run through the door. Charley is not even phased by them and is determained to finish what he started. Three men jump on him and wrestle him to the ground. They finally have him handcuffed to the hand-rail of the stairs. He arrogantly sits there singing nursery rhymes as Chris tries to revive Darcy. His efforts are finally successful and the final scene shows Chris escorting Darcy home from the hospital. Reader Responce I personally enjoyed this book. The aspects about it that I found interesting was basically the mystery and suspence end of it. I would highly recomend it.