In her latest novel, Team Building with a Twist (Scarlet Leaf Publishing, Toronto) Roxana Nastase  dishes out an engaging plot executed by a snappy cast of well-drawn characters--from the flippant, feisty Team Leader, Gilbert, who "looks like an unkempt bed," to the coolly inquisitive, shrewd, and attractive Chief Inspector Magda. These key figures are joined by various quirky individuals--including Adam, Anna, Alex, and Mia--all of whom play a significant role in the proceedings.


          The group which  employs these players sends them off to a mountain villa surrounded by  trail-laced forest lands: Their purpose is to build work teams in a pleasant, vacation-like setting to enable them to function more efficiently in response to recent internal upheavals. Meanwhile problems, especially between these characters, do arise! But in the process of attempting to build these buttoned-down skill groups, some of these team members start turning up dead--apparent murder victims, and this immediately casts shadows of suspicion over the entire crew.


          What kept this reader flipping pages was this:  all these flamboyant characters became potential murder victims and, at the same time, they all became potential murderers. Stirring snippets of humor into this suspenseful story, and ultimately leading to a promising romance toward the conclusion, the result is a captivating, spark-filled read for anyone who enjoys a psychologically solid mystery.


--Tom Tolnay, writer, Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, Saturday Evening Post, Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, Twilight Zone, Mystery Weekly, etc.