Bird in a Cage

Deb Ralston #11

by Lee Martin

To celebrate their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, Harry and Deb Ralston go out to dinner at the Bird Cage, a restaurant in downtown Fort Worth. Its fancy dinners are complemented by a floor show featuring a young woman on a flying trapeze, reminding Deb nostalgically of the three-ring circus she and her family visited when she was a girl.
The romance of the evening is ruined, however, when the performer plummets to her death - an "accident" caused by deliberate cuts in the ropes suspending her in midair forty feet above the tables. Once again, Deb Ralston - Detective Deb Ralston - must put her personal life on hold because duty calls.
Well, sort of on Another murder only means this working mother must juggle taking care of the baby, the teenager, and the pit bull (not to mention the husband and the recently divorced partner, who confesses he's developed a crush on Deb) with her increasingly time-consuming and dangerous job.

Genres: Mystery, Fiction

227 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

There is more than one author with this name

Pseudonym of Ann Wingate

Anne Wingate, born in 1943 as Martha Anne Guice, is a mystery writer currently living in Salt Lake City, Utah. Most of her mysteries are set somewhere within Texas. She is an adult convert to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and this sometimes shows in her works. She grew up in the Disciples of Christ Church.

Reviews

[Sarah A · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is number 11 in the series but the first I had read. It took me a while to get into this book, maybe because it was my first in the series. Once I was into it, I really enjoyed it as a coZy mystery. It is very unusual in starring a female police detective with a family. I liked the nice blend of strong female role model and the fun excitements and twists of the mystery. This mystery focuses on circus performers and it was also interesting to learn more about the families and their traditions.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

Deb Ralston. How I loved you but feel like the series is losing its excitement. Everything has become too predictable and even with tons of people trying to kill her, you just know at the end of the book she’ll make it and her family and life will continue intact.

That is why this will be the last book I read for this series. There are a couple of more but I can already visual in my head how they will go, there’s plot too exciting to entice me now, and I know nothing will happen to her family. Which is great because Deb Ralston is the strong female lead who has a dangerous job but is good at it and can still be an awesome wife and mother and do it all while shooting her weapon.

But it’s be one to norm for me. So thanks for adventure Deb, but I’m signing off.

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. Omg, the genealogy of the circus families! It was just more than I could keep track of! Still, it was interesting, & as usual with this series, I learned about something I hadn't known much about. The repeated use of "internet" without "the" in front of it felt really weird; did people really say "I learned it from Internet" in 1995?? Not that I remember.

I still don't like the animals being kept outside. Especially the Pat not being ALLOWED inside. And now there's a MALE dog named Ivy. Weird. Short for Ivory. Still weird. And this little Cocker Spaniel is going to be kept outside too??

[Cathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another good one in the Deb Ralston series. This one took me a bit longer to read; I don’t know why - perhaps just too much to do with the holidays. The circus storyline was particularly interesting.

[Yi · Rating 1 out of 5]

I suppose, if an author introduces a character on page 14 and then goes back and re-introduces him on page 28 in a way that couldn't possibly be anything but a mistake, you have to blame the editor. And the agent, who probably told the writer that the offending character was better introduced on page 28 rather than page 14, forcing said writer to get all confused about what she'd deleted and what she hadn't.
"Deb Ralston," the main character in this book, and apparently a woman who has her own mystery series, is a non-drinking, non-sinning, Mormon woman. She also doesn't drink coffee.
I can think of more exciting detectives, and even a few who wouldn't forget that they've already met a suspect on page 14 when they meet them again on page 28. Skip this one.

[Sarahandus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Deb Ralston and her husband are celebrating their anniversary at "The Bird Cage" when the performer is killed in an accident. Deb as Fort Worth detective suspects other wise.
This is a believable police procedural with a light touch.
There is some references to LDS religion for those who don't want to know about it, but they are very slight.