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Save the Last Dance For Me
AN INTRUDER HAS ENTERED JENNIFER'S WORLD...
A glamorous world of music and movement and sensual excitement.
Now someone watching Jennifer.
He watches her beauty, her grace, her supple young body. He watches the curve of her slender neck as she smiles at her lover.
He watches from the shadows and smiles, plotting, imagining...imagining her dazzling gifts are his alone...imagining her soft warm flesh beneath his hands.
He watches with tingling excitement as he watched all those other girls, all those other times.
He has waited so long, so patiently.
Soon now, Jennifer will dance.
For the very last time...
A glamorous world of music and movement and sensual excitement.
Now someone watching Jennifer.
He watches her beauty, her grace, her supple young body. He watches the curve of her slender neck as she smiles at her lover.
He watches from the shadows and smiles, plotting, imagining...imagining her dazzling gifts are his alone...imagining her soft warm flesh beneath his hands.
He watches with tingling excitement as he watched all those other girls, all those other times.
He has waited so long, so patiently.
Soon now, Jennifer will dance.
For the very last time...
373 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 1981
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221 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
July 26, 2018
A soapy serial killer thriller set in the glamorous, competitive, and deadly world of…ballet?
Well now, wasn’t that one hell of a blast from the past?! Given that I didn’t start seriously reading scary books until roughly 1988, I generally missed out on a lot of these “classics”. King and Koontz were the big draw authors at the time, and I got fully ensnared by their offerings, along with various and sundry fantasy, science fiction, and action novels. Of course, I was also very young and didn’t have a job yet, so I was beholden to whatever my mom was willing to buy for me. Funny how, all these years later, my basic book tastes really haven’t changed. Sure, I’ve added a few more genres to the reading repertoire, but when in doubt I always default back to my fabulous foursome (fantasy, sci-fi, horror, and action).
Sadly, living in Utah (where fun goes to die!) makes it rather difficult to locate and acquire these old gems of a bygone era. Though we have a few decent used bookstores (emphasis on “few”), horror isn’t terribly well represented here, especially with older books. For example: there’s one store (the nearest to me) that has a horror section of maybe 4 upright bookshelves, and literally ¾ of those shelves are taken up by V.C. Andrews, Stephen King, Dean Koontz, and Anne Rice. Seriously, those four authors make up three quarters of what that store has on offer for horror. That doesn’t leave much room for lesser known authors, and really shows the general mentality for horror books in Utah.
Thankfully, I occasionally get to travel for work, and during my latest trip (to Texas) I stumbled upon several VERY large used book stores in Dallas which had amazing selections of used horror. Of course, I had to limit my purchasing, as I only had so much space in my luggage, but I still managed to come home with a decent selection of classics, including Save The Last Dance For Me. After stumbling across a review for it somewhere on the Web (not Goodreads), I had been determined to find a copy to add to my library. I also really wanted to find it in an actual bookstore as opposed to doing the purchase through Ebay. Not that I don’t buy books on Ebay, but for my Bargain Bin Beasts section of my horror site I want to be legit and actually find these books in the bargain sections of stores. So…uh…thanks Dallas!
In a rather strange twist, aside from a few cultural references and technology mentions, this book doesn’t necessarily stand up and scream 80’s. There are quite a few modern books that actually throw more 80’s references in them than STLDFM. That said, there are a handful of glaring “you just dated yourself” moments. One of the biggest was the casual mention of Master Charge! This was before it was changed to MasterCard, back in the offline days when credit cards were swiped on manual imprinters with a solid KA-CHUNK! (when the credit cards themselves had raised characters that showed up on the carbon copy receipts). Of course, we have mentions of cassette recorders, Andy Warhol, and a decided lack of phones not attached to cables (and frequent busy signals!), but that’s really about it. That’s not to say that the book doesn’t feel nearly 40 years old, because it certainly does. There are multiple head-hops, omnipresent cigarettes (seriously, nearly everyone smokes), not-so-kosher callouts and nicknames for African Americans & Asian Americans, and the overwhelming popularity of the ballet. It all points to a radically different time. So while the book may not necessarily have the full 80’s vibe, it definitely fits within the standard storytelling patterns of the time and feels very much like an 80’s soap opera in book form. In fact, Judi Miller would go on several years after publishing STLDFM to write another serial killer thriller, set in the world of…you guessed it…daytime soap operas! Anyone want to take a stab at what the title of THAT book is!? I’ll give you three guesses, but you’ll only need one…
As with all my reviews, I will attempt to keep spoilers to a minimum. The book synopsis itself doesn’t give much away, so I’ll have to provide some additional detail to give a clearer picture. But, that said, I will do my level best to avoid mentioning any major plot points or twists. This one has also been truncated to fit within the Goodreads review character limit. For the full review, please visit my horror blog at The Horror Herald.
Our main character is Jennifer North, an up-and-coming ballerina for the New York Center ballet company. She has an apartment in New York City (not terribly far from the performing arts district), an orthopedic surgeon boyfriend (Richard, or as I call him, Dr. Dick!), and is set to go on a European tour to support the triumphant return to full-length ballet productions of one Mr. Zolinsky, the Artistic Director of the ballet company, and a world-renowned ballet wunderkind. Unfortunately, Jennifer has failed to mention to Richard that she is going on this fast approaching little trans-continental trip, even though they now live together in her apartment. This initial little lie by omission essentially sets the wishy-washy tone for her character throughout the novel. And that tone is of a character that, at the end of the day, I really didn’t mind if she got strangled with her own leotard. I get it that she’s 19, impetuous & beautiful, and is smack dab in the middle of an environment that caters towards that beauty over intellect and/or compassion. An environment in which she thrives. It’s generally understood that one generally can’t be in drama or the performing arts without being a dramatic person (even if it’s just a little). But even allowing that, I simply didn’t have much invested in Jennifer. I liked that she was away from home, stretching her wings and coming into her own, and living the life she wanted. She was going to have Richard live with her no matter what her parents thought, and truly did practice hard for the ballet, and I respected those things about her character. Sadly, outside of those positives, she never really develops as a character, starting out spineless and then never sticking up for herself or fighting back when she’s in danger. Though she says she loves him, Jennifer has no idea how she really feels about Richard, yanking him this way and that emotionally. And to top it all off, her best friend and fellow ballet dancer is killed by the Ballet Killer relatively early on, and Jennifer really doesn’t seem too concerned about it. Yeah, she feels a little queasy for like a day, but when she finds out that, because of her friend’s death, her own way is being paved in the ballet company (now she has a shot at doing more solos and possibly being a principal dancer), aside from a very small twinge of guilt, she’s completely overjoyed. She talks about missing her friend, but it all just seems like window-dressing, like she’s going through the motions. I also have a hard time with entitled characters; Jennifer has her own, by all accounts, nice NYC apartment (Richard moved in later), wears contacts (not the cheapest thing in 1980/1981), and never once goes to a normal job. Her out-of-state parents aren’t wealthy by any means (they need Jennifer and Richard to pick them up from the airport when they fly in for a visit), so I doubt they are funding her lifestyle. Being in the ballet corps (essentially the chorus) would pay very little (as opposed to being a principal dancer), so I just don’t understand how she does it. So yeah, while I never like it when an innocent girl is in danger/distress, there were absolutely times when I was like “dude, PLEASE kill the bitch!”.
The only other main character of note (aside from the Ballet Killer himself) is Detective Fazio. He’s a pretty upstanding guy but is constantly getting on-upped by other members of the police department. He’s part of the Ballet Killer task force, which consists of either 50 officers & detectives or…maybe 10…it’s never really clear. Either way, he’s being steamrolled by the new police captain, who is only too happy to take the spotlight away from Fazio and bask in the glory himself. Fazio initially doesn’t make much of an impression, but as the story progresses, and he is more and more convinced that the Ballet Killer is still at large, he starts to come into his own. He eventually basically begins a one-man crusade in his off hours to prove whether or not his suspicions are correct. He’s also the only character, aside from Jennifer’s boyfriend and her parents, who actually seems to care about the deaths of these ballerinas in a way that truly matters. It’s like most of the cops are just like “hmmmmm, job security, you know?”, Detective Fazio actually worries for these women and can’t just accept things at face value. He fits the grizzled cop stereotype to a T; gruff, imposing, and good at interrogations, but with a good heart beneath the rough & tumble exterior. Sadly, for all his good intentions and unwillingness to give up, he can be kind of an idiot sometimes (but only when the plot requires him to be so). Allow me to set the scene: It’s a day or so into his personal investigation into the Ballet Killer, who everyone thinks has already been caught. While following up on several leads, Fazio notices that he’s being followed by the same car throughout the night, a car driven by someone who is obviously trying to disguise themselves. This guy’s a seasoned detective, surely he’ll do something about this development, yes? No. He notes it, contemplates it for roughly 2.7 seconds, and then immediately ignores it. He makes ZERO attempt to discover who the person is. He doesn’t even attempt to lose the tail. Does he call on his police radio to other units in the area for support? Nope. Does he call the precinct to get info on the vehicle? Nope. I mean, I know he’s looking into a case that everyone thinks is already solved, but as a detective he has that freedom. So, he has no reason not to notify the precinct that he is being followed. They aren’t going to ask him what he’s up to or anything. They’ll protect their own, because that’s generally what cops do. But no, he just continues on with his business, knowing full well that he is being tailed. Like, dude, what if it’s the Ballet Killer following you?! Wouldn’t you maybe want to see what was what? Evidently, Detective Fazio does not. Sigh. Still, dumb decisions notwithstanding, Fazio is really one of the only characters in the book with redeeming qualities, so he gets a pass.
As for the Ballet Killer himself, he’s a pretty mixed bag of nuts. And I mean NUTS! His issues stem largely from an abusive and rather sick upbringing, for which we get several allusions and half-explanations, while never getting a fully clear image his troubled childhood. For the first half of the book, his identity is carefully hidden, with several possible suspects cropping up. In addition to the present events taking place as he’s doing his dirty deeds, he also has frequent traumatic flashbacks at the beginning of most chapters, though it’s difficult to tell when in the past they took place. Sometimes his age might be mentioned, but for the most part we aren’t given much context for when these events occurred. Though this was sometimes confusing, I eventually came to terms with it, especially since those interludes served to drive home the fragmented nature of his mind. Especially since it was generally something that he was seeing at the present moment that was triggering the flashbacks to his youth. His motivations area actually pretty well explored, and his unhinged nature made him one of the most interesting parts of the book. He seems to have several different disorders all rolled up into one nucking futs burrito. And let me tell you, Freud would have had a field day with the Ballet Killer. Aside from not having a father to compete with, his fixation on his mother very much fits the Oedipus complex model. In fact, the dynamic with the mother should have been explored much more deeply. Her part in the story is twisted, sad, and dangerous all smashed together, and the DEEPLY flawed relationship with her son provides some of the more interesting interactions and motivations in the book. I can’t say that the mental health and behavioral issues that cropped up were handled in any particular realistic way, but this was a time when psychology and psychiatry weren’t as accepted fields as they are now, so mental health and behavior were looked at quite differently. Of course, there’s plenty of evidence now to support the fact that many serial killers had very abnormal upbringings, including abuse, shaming, and incest, that significantly impacted who they grew up to be. But, in the 80’s, psycho killers didn’t really need a lot of scientific explanations for their insanity. We, as an audience, weren’t really asking for them.
Outside of these three main characters, the rest of the roster really doesn’t stand out. Of course there’s Jennifer’s boyfriend, Dr. Dick! He genuinely cares about Jennifer, but also smothers the shit out of her, so I can sorta see why she’s unsure of how she really feels towards him. And he is kinda whiny and pushy, hence my nickname for him. There are also some cop buddies for Fazio, some ballet acquaintances for Jennifer, and a whole assortment of random people that just pop up for plot progression, but none of them really make an impact. We barely even get to know Jennifer’s friend Heather before she ends up as another victim of the Ballet Killer’s sick obsession. Jennifer’s other friend Yuri, the principal male dancer in the New York Center ballet company, is basically a blatant stand-in for Mikhail Baryshnikov, the real-life 80’s ex-Russian ballet heartthrob who was effortlessly entrancing young girls and mothers everywhere, setting their hearts a-flutter with his poise, grace, and well-turned ankles. There are also a few red herring characters that could have been interesting and given the story a bit more depth and tension, but they aren’t explored in any satisfying way.
One of the biggest issues I had with the supporting cast however, in addition to how lifeless and uninteresting most of them were, was the fact that we head hop between them constantly. It starts out small, with only one or two hops per chapter, but by the end of the book we may head hop between seven to ten characters in the space of 10 pages. We go from Jennifer, to Richard, to Yuri, to another dancer in the company, to one of the cops, to the Ballet Killer, back to Jennifer, etc., all without any line or chapter breaks. It’s like novel whiplash, as you’ll switch from a male third-person perspective to a female third-person perspective to some random dude’s third-person perspective, requiring the brain to switch gears, abandoning a thread established with one character to pick up one from another character. It’s a writing method which has thankfully all but disappeared in modern literature. Typically, modern books don’t give readers a new person to follow until a new chapter starts, which helps immensely in keeping up with each character’s thoughts and progress in the story. It’s actually funny how, back in the 80’s/90’s, I never noticed the literary tactic of head hopping, but it definitely sticks out now. I guess we acclimate to the standards of the times.
Outside of the characters, Judi Miller seems to have done a pretty decent job of researching ballet and the various trials and tribulations that take place backstage. I’ve worked in theatre, with choreographed dance numbers and such, and honestly felt that she accurately portrayed the stress and shenanigans that go on when performers aren’t on stage. And I do remember back during the early 80’s just how popular ballet and other stage productions (Cats anyone!?) were. She also decently describes the hustle and bustle of New York in general, if in a somewhat condensed fashion. For a slice of 80’s soap-opera horror, this book actually delivers a fun and unique setup, one that very likely couldn’t be replicated today. It’s very obvious that she was writing to a very specific audience, and I am pretty sure that audience ate this one up.
But while Judi Miller gets the ballet part right, I think she stumbles a bit when it comes to the Ballet Killer task force. The cops & detectives really don’t talk or act like cops & detectives for the most part, so it’s no wonder that lovely ballerinas have been getting killed for roughly a year now. It’s actually kind of funny to see how much infighting is taking place within the ranks of the task force. At one point in the story, one of the cops feigns a drunken pass out at a precinct Christmas party and then dons a disguise to spy on a different cop who is simply doing his job and being efficient. All on the orders of another cop who is away on holiday, and who would barely have had enough time repack any travel items he might have missed, let alone set up some kind of internal spy ring. Especially since this is taking place right around Christmas time in New York City, when the task force mistakenly believes they have caught their man and have been holding press conferences and a congratulatory dinner with the mayor. These officers and detectives would either be home with their families or assigned to other priority cases. Again…this is 1980 New York…right before Christmas. I’m sure there was no shortage of crazy shit going down in NYC during this timeframe!
For the horror aspects, they start out rather generic, but as the book heads towards its climax, Judi Miller really starts to pull the curtain back (zing!) and give us readers a few really creepy and icky moments. I just wish she had explored this better throughout the whole story. Gore is pretty minimal in the story; while deaths do happen, they aren’t dripping with gory details. Swearing is kept to a minimum, with only a few instances standing out in my memory. There is also only one sexy moment in the book, but it’s minor and really not explicit. It’s a shame that the sense of tension and dread wasn’t established better early on. By the time the tension ratchets up and the danger seems very real, the book is nearly over and it almost seems anticlimactic. I don’t think that mature readers will really get many scares out of this one, but younger readers might find it decently frightening. Still, if you like ballet and you like serial killer thrillers, then this really is the only book that meets both those requirements!
So, yeah. I know I’m critiquing a lot of aspects of the book, and maybe it sounds like I didn’t like it, but that’s not true. I actually did like it, I just had a lot of issues with it. But such is life. It’s easy to look back at older works and criticize them for the standards of the time, and though I have pointed out some of those things in this review, that doesn’t mean that they ruined my enjoyment of the book. It’s actually a pretty solid read, and I have no doubt that it was very popular with the V.C. Andrews crowd back in the day. It really is a fun & unique entry into the psycho killer genre of horror fiction from that timeframe, and something more oriented towards a female audience, which was in short supply back then. It was also Judi Miller’s first published book, so she was still honing her craft. And fans of 80’s/90’s horror will enjoy it regardless of its flaws. It’s worth reading Save The Last Dance For Me to take a trip back to a time when horror authors really had to struggle to come up with ideas that would get them published, especially since King & Koontz were setting high standards. Definitely check it out if you are in the mood for some retro slasher scares!
Three out of five graceful yet catty stars!
Well now, wasn’t that one hell of a blast from the past?! Given that I didn’t start seriously reading scary books until roughly 1988, I generally missed out on a lot of these “classics”. King and Koontz were the big draw authors at the time, and I got fully ensnared by their offerings, along with various and sundry fantasy, science fiction, and action novels. Of course, I was also very young and didn’t have a job yet, so I was beholden to whatever my mom was willing to buy for me. Funny how, all these years later, my basic book tastes really haven’t changed. Sure, I’ve added a few more genres to the reading repertoire, but when in doubt I always default back to my fabulous foursome (fantasy, sci-fi, horror, and action).
Sadly, living in Utah (where fun goes to die!) makes it rather difficult to locate and acquire these old gems of a bygone era. Though we have a few decent used bookstores (emphasis on “few”), horror isn’t terribly well represented here, especially with older books. For example: there’s one store (the nearest to me) that has a horror section of maybe 4 upright bookshelves, and literally ¾ of those shelves are taken up by V.C. Andrews, Stephen King, Dean Koontz, and Anne Rice. Seriously, those four authors make up three quarters of what that store has on offer for horror. That doesn’t leave much room for lesser known authors, and really shows the general mentality for horror books in Utah.
Thankfully, I occasionally get to travel for work, and during my latest trip (to Texas) I stumbled upon several VERY large used book stores in Dallas which had amazing selections of used horror. Of course, I had to limit my purchasing, as I only had so much space in my luggage, but I still managed to come home with a decent selection of classics, including Save The Last Dance For Me. After stumbling across a review for it somewhere on the Web (not Goodreads), I had been determined to find a copy to add to my library. I also really wanted to find it in an actual bookstore as opposed to doing the purchase through Ebay. Not that I don’t buy books on Ebay, but for my Bargain Bin Beasts section of my horror site I want to be legit and actually find these books in the bargain sections of stores. So…uh…thanks Dallas!
In a rather strange twist, aside from a few cultural references and technology mentions, this book doesn’t necessarily stand up and scream 80’s. There are quite a few modern books that actually throw more 80’s references in them than STLDFM. That said, there are a handful of glaring “you just dated yourself” moments. One of the biggest was the casual mention of Master Charge! This was before it was changed to MasterCard, back in the offline days when credit cards were swiped on manual imprinters with a solid KA-CHUNK! (when the credit cards themselves had raised characters that showed up on the carbon copy receipts). Of course, we have mentions of cassette recorders, Andy Warhol, and a decided lack of phones not attached to cables (and frequent busy signals!), but that’s really about it. That’s not to say that the book doesn’t feel nearly 40 years old, because it certainly does. There are multiple head-hops, omnipresent cigarettes (seriously, nearly everyone smokes), not-so-kosher callouts and nicknames for African Americans & Asian Americans, and the overwhelming popularity of the ballet. It all points to a radically different time. So while the book may not necessarily have the full 80’s vibe, it definitely fits within the standard storytelling patterns of the time and feels very much like an 80’s soap opera in book form. In fact, Judi Miller would go on several years after publishing STLDFM to write another serial killer thriller, set in the world of…you guessed it…daytime soap operas! Anyone want to take a stab at what the title of THAT book is!? I’ll give you three guesses, but you’ll only need one…
As with all my reviews, I will attempt to keep spoilers to a minimum. The book synopsis itself doesn’t give much away, so I’ll have to provide some additional detail to give a clearer picture. But, that said, I will do my level best to avoid mentioning any major plot points or twists. This one has also been truncated to fit within the Goodreads review character limit. For the full review, please visit my horror blog at The Horror Herald.
Our main character is Jennifer North, an up-and-coming ballerina for the New York Center ballet company. She has an apartment in New York City (not terribly far from the performing arts district), an orthopedic surgeon boyfriend (Richard, or as I call him, Dr. Dick!), and is set to go on a European tour to support the triumphant return to full-length ballet productions of one Mr. Zolinsky, the Artistic Director of the ballet company, and a world-renowned ballet wunderkind. Unfortunately, Jennifer has failed to mention to Richard that she is going on this fast approaching little trans-continental trip, even though they now live together in her apartment. This initial little lie by omission essentially sets the wishy-washy tone for her character throughout the novel. And that tone is of a character that, at the end of the day, I really didn’t mind if she got strangled with her own leotard. I get it that she’s 19, impetuous & beautiful, and is smack dab in the middle of an environment that caters towards that beauty over intellect and/or compassion. An environment in which she thrives. It’s generally understood that one generally can’t be in drama or the performing arts without being a dramatic person (even if it’s just a little). But even allowing that, I simply didn’t have much invested in Jennifer. I liked that she was away from home, stretching her wings and coming into her own, and living the life she wanted. She was going to have Richard live with her no matter what her parents thought, and truly did practice hard for the ballet, and I respected those things about her character. Sadly, outside of those positives, she never really develops as a character, starting out spineless and then never sticking up for herself or fighting back when she’s in danger. Though she says she loves him, Jennifer has no idea how she really feels about Richard, yanking him this way and that emotionally. And to top it all off, her best friend and fellow ballet dancer is killed by the Ballet Killer relatively early on, and Jennifer really doesn’t seem too concerned about it. Yeah, she feels a little queasy for like a day, but when she finds out that, because of her friend’s death, her own way is being paved in the ballet company (now she has a shot at doing more solos and possibly being a principal dancer), aside from a very small twinge of guilt, she’s completely overjoyed. She talks about missing her friend, but it all just seems like window-dressing, like she’s going through the motions. I also have a hard time with entitled characters; Jennifer has her own, by all accounts, nice NYC apartment (Richard moved in later), wears contacts (not the cheapest thing in 1980/1981), and never once goes to a normal job. Her out-of-state parents aren’t wealthy by any means (they need Jennifer and Richard to pick them up from the airport when they fly in for a visit), so I doubt they are funding her lifestyle. Being in the ballet corps (essentially the chorus) would pay very little (as opposed to being a principal dancer), so I just don’t understand how she does it. So yeah, while I never like it when an innocent girl is in danger/distress, there were absolutely times when I was like “dude, PLEASE kill the bitch!”.
The only other main character of note (aside from the Ballet Killer himself) is Detective Fazio. He’s a pretty upstanding guy but is constantly getting on-upped by other members of the police department. He’s part of the Ballet Killer task force, which consists of either 50 officers & detectives or…maybe 10…it’s never really clear. Either way, he’s being steamrolled by the new police captain, who is only too happy to take the spotlight away from Fazio and bask in the glory himself. Fazio initially doesn’t make much of an impression, but as the story progresses, and he is more and more convinced that the Ballet Killer is still at large, he starts to come into his own. He eventually basically begins a one-man crusade in his off hours to prove whether or not his suspicions are correct. He’s also the only character, aside from Jennifer’s boyfriend and her parents, who actually seems to care about the deaths of these ballerinas in a way that truly matters. It’s like most of the cops are just like “hmmmmm, job security, you know?”, Detective Fazio actually worries for these women and can’t just accept things at face value. He fits the grizzled cop stereotype to a T; gruff, imposing, and good at interrogations, but with a good heart beneath the rough & tumble exterior. Sadly, for all his good intentions and unwillingness to give up, he can be kind of an idiot sometimes (but only when the plot requires him to be so). Allow me to set the scene: It’s a day or so into his personal investigation into the Ballet Killer, who everyone thinks has already been caught. While following up on several leads, Fazio notices that he’s being followed by the same car throughout the night, a car driven by someone who is obviously trying to disguise themselves. This guy’s a seasoned detective, surely he’ll do something about this development, yes? No. He notes it, contemplates it for roughly 2.7 seconds, and then immediately ignores it. He makes ZERO attempt to discover who the person is. He doesn’t even attempt to lose the tail. Does he call on his police radio to other units in the area for support? Nope. Does he call the precinct to get info on the vehicle? Nope. I mean, I know he’s looking into a case that everyone thinks is already solved, but as a detective he has that freedom. So, he has no reason not to notify the precinct that he is being followed. They aren’t going to ask him what he’s up to or anything. They’ll protect their own, because that’s generally what cops do. But no, he just continues on with his business, knowing full well that he is being tailed. Like, dude, what if it’s the Ballet Killer following you?! Wouldn’t you maybe want to see what was what? Evidently, Detective Fazio does not. Sigh. Still, dumb decisions notwithstanding, Fazio is really one of the only characters in the book with redeeming qualities, so he gets a pass.
As for the Ballet Killer himself, he’s a pretty mixed bag of nuts. And I mean NUTS! His issues stem largely from an abusive and rather sick upbringing, for which we get several allusions and half-explanations, while never getting a fully clear image his troubled childhood. For the first half of the book, his identity is carefully hidden, with several possible suspects cropping up. In addition to the present events taking place as he’s doing his dirty deeds, he also has frequent traumatic flashbacks at the beginning of most chapters, though it’s difficult to tell when in the past they took place. Sometimes his age might be mentioned, but for the most part we aren’t given much context for when these events occurred. Though this was sometimes confusing, I eventually came to terms with it, especially since those interludes served to drive home the fragmented nature of his mind. Especially since it was generally something that he was seeing at the present moment that was triggering the flashbacks to his youth. His motivations area actually pretty well explored, and his unhinged nature made him one of the most interesting parts of the book. He seems to have several different disorders all rolled up into one nucking futs burrito. And let me tell you, Freud would have had a field day with the Ballet Killer. Aside from not having a father to compete with, his fixation on his mother very much fits the Oedipus complex model. In fact, the dynamic with the mother should have been explored much more deeply. Her part in the story is twisted, sad, and dangerous all smashed together, and the DEEPLY flawed relationship with her son provides some of the more interesting interactions and motivations in the book. I can’t say that the mental health and behavioral issues that cropped up were handled in any particular realistic way, but this was a time when psychology and psychiatry weren’t as accepted fields as they are now, so mental health and behavior were looked at quite differently. Of course, there’s plenty of evidence now to support the fact that many serial killers had very abnormal upbringings, including abuse, shaming, and incest, that significantly impacted who they grew up to be. But, in the 80’s, psycho killers didn’t really need a lot of scientific explanations for their insanity. We, as an audience, weren’t really asking for them.
Outside of these three main characters, the rest of the roster really doesn’t stand out. Of course there’s Jennifer’s boyfriend, Dr. Dick! He genuinely cares about Jennifer, but also smothers the shit out of her, so I can sorta see why she’s unsure of how she really feels towards him. And he is kinda whiny and pushy, hence my nickname for him. There are also some cop buddies for Fazio, some ballet acquaintances for Jennifer, and a whole assortment of random people that just pop up for plot progression, but none of them really make an impact. We barely even get to know Jennifer’s friend Heather before she ends up as another victim of the Ballet Killer’s sick obsession. Jennifer’s other friend Yuri, the principal male dancer in the New York Center ballet company, is basically a blatant stand-in for Mikhail Baryshnikov, the real-life 80’s ex-Russian ballet heartthrob who was effortlessly entrancing young girls and mothers everywhere, setting their hearts a-flutter with his poise, grace, and well-turned ankles. There are also a few red herring characters that could have been interesting and given the story a bit more depth and tension, but they aren’t explored in any satisfying way.
One of the biggest issues I had with the supporting cast however, in addition to how lifeless and uninteresting most of them were, was the fact that we head hop between them constantly. It starts out small, with only one or two hops per chapter, but by the end of the book we may head hop between seven to ten characters in the space of 10 pages. We go from Jennifer, to Richard, to Yuri, to another dancer in the company, to one of the cops, to the Ballet Killer, back to Jennifer, etc., all without any line or chapter breaks. It’s like novel whiplash, as you’ll switch from a male third-person perspective to a female third-person perspective to some random dude’s third-person perspective, requiring the brain to switch gears, abandoning a thread established with one character to pick up one from another character. It’s a writing method which has thankfully all but disappeared in modern literature. Typically, modern books don’t give readers a new person to follow until a new chapter starts, which helps immensely in keeping up with each character’s thoughts and progress in the story. It’s actually funny how, back in the 80’s/90’s, I never noticed the literary tactic of head hopping, but it definitely sticks out now. I guess we acclimate to the standards of the times.
Outside of the characters, Judi Miller seems to have done a pretty decent job of researching ballet and the various trials and tribulations that take place backstage. I’ve worked in theatre, with choreographed dance numbers and such, and honestly felt that she accurately portrayed the stress and shenanigans that go on when performers aren’t on stage. And I do remember back during the early 80’s just how popular ballet and other stage productions (Cats anyone!?) were. She also decently describes the hustle and bustle of New York in general, if in a somewhat condensed fashion. For a slice of 80’s soap-opera horror, this book actually delivers a fun and unique setup, one that very likely couldn’t be replicated today. It’s very obvious that she was writing to a very specific audience, and I am pretty sure that audience ate this one up.
But while Judi Miller gets the ballet part right, I think she stumbles a bit when it comes to the Ballet Killer task force. The cops & detectives really don’t talk or act like cops & detectives for the most part, so it’s no wonder that lovely ballerinas have been getting killed for roughly a year now. It’s actually kind of funny to see how much infighting is taking place within the ranks of the task force. At one point in the story, one of the cops feigns a drunken pass out at a precinct Christmas party and then dons a disguise to spy on a different cop who is simply doing his job and being efficient. All on the orders of another cop who is away on holiday, and who would barely have had enough time repack any travel items he might have missed, let alone set up some kind of internal spy ring. Especially since this is taking place right around Christmas time in New York City, when the task force mistakenly believes they have caught their man and have been holding press conferences and a congratulatory dinner with the mayor. These officers and detectives would either be home with their families or assigned to other priority cases. Again…this is 1980 New York…right before Christmas. I’m sure there was no shortage of crazy shit going down in NYC during this timeframe!
For the horror aspects, they start out rather generic, but as the book heads towards its climax, Judi Miller really starts to pull the curtain back (zing!) and give us readers a few really creepy and icky moments. I just wish she had explored this better throughout the whole story. Gore is pretty minimal in the story; while deaths do happen, they aren’t dripping with gory details. Swearing is kept to a minimum, with only a few instances standing out in my memory. There is also only one sexy moment in the book, but it’s minor and really not explicit. It’s a shame that the sense of tension and dread wasn’t established better early on. By the time the tension ratchets up and the danger seems very real, the book is nearly over and it almost seems anticlimactic. I don’t think that mature readers will really get many scares out of this one, but younger readers might find it decently frightening. Still, if you like ballet and you like serial killer thrillers, then this really is the only book that meets both those requirements!
So, yeah. I know I’m critiquing a lot of aspects of the book, and maybe it sounds like I didn’t like it, but that’s not true. I actually did like it, I just had a lot of issues with it. But such is life. It’s easy to look back at older works and criticize them for the standards of the time, and though I have pointed out some of those things in this review, that doesn’t mean that they ruined my enjoyment of the book. It’s actually a pretty solid read, and I have no doubt that it was very popular with the V.C. Andrews crowd back in the day. It really is a fun & unique entry into the psycho killer genre of horror fiction from that timeframe, and something more oriented towards a female audience, which was in short supply back then. It was also Judi Miller’s first published book, so she was still honing her craft. And fans of 80’s/90’s horror will enjoy it regardless of its flaws. It’s worth reading Save The Last Dance For Me to take a trip back to a time when horror authors really had to struggle to come up with ideas that would get them published, especially since King & Koontz were setting high standards. Definitely check it out if you are in the mood for some retro slasher scares!
Three out of five graceful yet catty stars!
November 16, 2016
Judi Miller turns her soft-focus gaze on the world of ballerinas in this made-for-TV book that teaches young dancers that the worst thing that can possibly happen to them is being kidnapped, driven to Queens, and forced to learn terrible choreography in a basement. She's not wrong.
June 21, 2019
Entertaining even if it was predictable and full of half-fleshed out and unrealistic characters. The amazing cover (I am a sucker for anything with a die-cut and stepback art) and the setting of the ballet world of early 1980's New York City was definitely what lured me in at the start.
The story: it's just before Christmas and there is a killer loose in NYC that is raping and strangling ballerinas- he's been dubbed "The Ballet Killer". As our story begins, he has just claimed his tenth victim, and there is a lot of pressure on the police to corner the killer. Our main character is Jennifer North, a young and beautiful dancer with the New York Center Ballet Company; she is about to star in her first full ballet and she is engaged to an orthopedic surgeon named Richard. Fairly early on in the novel she is kidnapped by The Ballet Killer. The rest of the story sees Detective Frank Fazio trying to crack the case before Jennifer's "last dance". Our detective is a bit of an underdog, having recently been demoted from head of The Ballet Killer task force, and now under the command of one Captain William Hogan, who thinks he's so great but is really just a big buffoon.
I didn't care at all about Jennifer, Richard, and certainly not The Ballet Killer and his silly - albeit creepy- back story. Detective Frank Fazio was really what kept me reading, with his rough-around-the-edges and gruff personality, his chain-smoking and his "hunches". (So many detective stereotypes but he was so likeable!)
The ending tried to be very climactic, but was definitely a let down. (Though it did have a bit of a twist that I didn't anticipate, but who am I kidding, I never predict these things.) The last scene in the novel, and in particular, the last passage, was so bizarre that it left me scratching my head and flipping to the next page to make sure that that was truly it. Why Judi, WHY would you end your novel that way?!?!?
Despite these criticisms, I would recommend this if you're looking for a fun crime/horror read, without expecting to get much out of it than a couple chuckles and some early 1980s nostalgia. Oh and Detective Frank Fazio. <3
The story: it's just before Christmas and there is a killer loose in NYC that is raping and strangling ballerinas- he's been dubbed "The Ballet Killer". As our story begins, he has just claimed his tenth victim, and there is a lot of pressure on the police to corner the killer. Our main character is Jennifer North, a young and beautiful dancer with the New York Center Ballet Company; she is about to star in her first full ballet and she is engaged to an orthopedic surgeon named Richard. Fairly early on in the novel she is kidnapped by The Ballet Killer. The rest of the story sees Detective Frank Fazio trying to crack the case before Jennifer's "last dance". Our detective is a bit of an underdog, having recently been demoted from head of The Ballet Killer task force, and now under the command of one Captain William Hogan, who thinks he's so great but is really just a big buffoon.
I didn't care at all about Jennifer, Richard, and certainly not The Ballet Killer and his silly - albeit creepy- back story. Detective Frank Fazio was really what kept me reading, with his rough-around-the-edges and gruff personality, his chain-smoking and his "hunches". (So many detective stereotypes but he was so likeable!)
The ending tried to be very climactic, but was definitely a let down. (Though it did have a bit of a twist that I didn't anticipate, but who am I kidding, I never predict these things.) The last scene in the novel, and in particular, the last passage, was so bizarre that it left me scratching my head and flipping to the next page to make sure that that was truly it. Why Judi, WHY would you end your novel that way?!?!?
Despite these criticisms, I would recommend this if you're looking for a fun crime/horror read, without expecting to get much out of it than a couple chuckles and some early 1980s nostalgia. Oh and Detective Frank Fazio. <3
March 2, 2021
3,5*
When a serial killer starts to target ballerinas, no one is safe on their way back home. Told from both the perspective of the killer as well as the victims, this thriller even though it is not particularly full of twists and turns, keeps you engaged and hooked to the story.
Personally I feel like if you love true crime and books about obsession and dark pasts you will enjoy this thriller.
The police department is working to get this killer behind bars before more girls are being brutally murdered. However things will not be as easy as they seem to be and the person they are looking for might not be who they expected.
Loved the pacing of the book and even though it was a bit long for the type of thriller that it is, I really enjoyed that 80s thriller vibe to it and it was really easy to fly through.
When a serial killer starts to target ballerinas, no one is safe on their way back home. Told from both the perspective of the killer as well as the victims, this thriller even though it is not particularly full of twists and turns, keeps you engaged and hooked to the story.
Personally I feel like if you love true crime and books about obsession and dark pasts you will enjoy this thriller.
The police department is working to get this killer behind bars before more girls are being brutally murdered. However things will not be as easy as they seem to be and the person they are looking for might not be who they expected.
Loved the pacing of the book and even though it was a bit long for the type of thriller that it is, I really enjoyed that 80s thriller vibe to it and it was really easy to fly through.
April 2, 2017
Yick. Yick, yick, yick. Only made it a page and a half. Offensive language and an Oedipus complex. Ew!
July 2, 2022
I found this in a thrift store in 1999 and made all my friends read it, then we made a cheap home movie that was based on it. It was fun. I first read this in high school, and it gave me nightmares.
March 24, 2025
(3.5 Stars)
I had a lot of fun with this one. I was completely wrong about what it was about (a common occurrence with these older paperback horrors in part because they were awful at writing accurate synopses for their books and in part because I just assumed it was about a school dance…not professional ballerinas…but hey, that’s alright) but the surprise aspect of it kept me turning the pages for the first half where things were a bit slower paced.
I found the formatting and pacing of this book to be a little off. There are so many short vignettes from so many different characters, but because of the way the book was formatted I found myself sometimes confused about whose story I was reading at what time. It was never difficult to catch back on, but it did throw me from the reading trance a few times because of that. Otherwise though, this was a pretty stellar read. The ending was explosive and while I could’ve used a BIT more wrap up, I was alright with the abrupt nature of the ending. This book took on a somewhat police procedural format for the second half and I’ve found over the last few months that I quite like that take on the horror and mystery genres. This was quite well done!
I had a lot of fun with this one. I was completely wrong about what it was about (a common occurrence with these older paperback horrors in part because they were awful at writing accurate synopses for their books and in part because I just assumed it was about a school dance…not professional ballerinas…but hey, that’s alright) but the surprise aspect of it kept me turning the pages for the first half where things were a bit slower paced.
I found the formatting and pacing of this book to be a little off. There are so many short vignettes from so many different characters, but because of the way the book was formatted I found myself sometimes confused about whose story I was reading at what time. It was never difficult to catch back on, but it did throw me from the reading trance a few times because of that. Otherwise though, this was a pretty stellar read. The ending was explosive and while I could’ve used a BIT more wrap up, I was alright with the abrupt nature of the ending. This book took on a somewhat police procedural format for the second half and I’ve found over the last few months that I quite like that take on the horror and mystery genres. This was quite well done!
October 8, 2019
The book starts with the body of a ballerina being found, one of ten from three major ballet companies in New York City that have been killed, then the abduction of another one, nineteen-year-old Jennifer North, who willingly went home with the killer, then was abducted by him. She's not a character for me to have sympathy for since she's a cheater and I just didn't care much about what happened to her.
The killer has always had a screwed up relationship with his mother yet he remains close to her. I don't like that she was in this except for in flashback. She kind of ruined it, that and that they were in on some of the happenings together, which was completely unbelievable.
This wasn't very good or too suspenseful. I like part of the ending, at the ballet, but some of the things that happened there with the killer's mother, I didn't like at all. This would have been so much better if the mother had been left out and we'd seen more of the killings.
May 30, 2023
A series of ballerina murders leaves everyone in a company on edge. Jennifer is kidnapped by max and held hostage while the police think a crazy man they found was the killer. Everyone looks for Jennifer as Max hatches a scheme to get his mother out of the mental ward and get revenge on the man that wronged her.
This book plodded along at a snails pace with soap opera level characters and situations. But it was also filled with incest. The biggest problem was the entire plan of the killer and his mom made no sense and the climax landed like a wet fart. It was one of those times you feel like the author didn’t really know what to do so just did the first thing that popped into their heads.
I also found it annoying whenever a ballet term was italicized, simply because I kept reading it in a pretentious french accent in my head like I was being talked down to by myself.
Overall nothing special.
This book plodded along at a snails pace with soap opera level characters and situations. But it was also filled with incest. The biggest problem was the entire plan of the killer and his mom made no sense and the climax landed like a wet fart. It was one of those times you feel like the author didn’t really know what to do so just did the first thing that popped into their heads.
I also found it annoying whenever a ballet term was italicized, simply because I kept reading it in a pretentious french accent in my head like I was being talked down to by myself.
Overall nothing special.
April 21, 2023
Grady Hendrix brought me here - 😜…
Three stars for 80’s nostalgia- at times I felt as though I were transported back in time; the dialog - the font - the price listed on the book ($2.75), V.C. Andrews front cover review/praise….
And at times I hated reading this story so much…
Had I read it when it was first released - oh yeah, this would be a great/scary-ish crime story - but now a days it seems more common place, less shocking- even though there are quite a few cringey paragraphs…
Just your run of the mill Ed Gein/Ed Kemper… Mommy issues…. 🫣
Three stars for 80’s nostalgia- at times I felt as though I were transported back in time; the dialog - the font - the price listed on the book ($2.75), V.C. Andrews front cover review/praise….
And at times I hated reading this story so much…
Had I read it when it was first released - oh yeah, this would be a great/scary-ish crime story - but now a days it seems more common place, less shocking- even though there are quite a few cringey paragraphs…
Just your run of the mill Ed Gein/Ed Kemper… Mommy issues…. 🫣
February 5, 2024
I was digging the Suspira sort of vibes but this is a stalker / serial killer novel and not a supernatural one. Which has its own charm. I'm still not sold on any of the main leads. This a book where we have a better understanding of the villian but we can't forgive them for being terrible people.
October 3, 2024
1.5.. really wanted to power through cuz ballet themed horror is a vibe but that was pretty stupid sorry
June 24, 2025
got me back into reading, loved the plot twists and character building
May 9, 2010
Actually, a really good read, and FAST. I think they got a little weird at the "wrap it all up" ending -- maybe tried to hard to explain everything that didn't get explained already? Anyway, quite the enjoyable book, about a psychopath and his mom...or is that a psychopath and her son?? either way works really.
It is a bit more of a thriller than a horror novel. Along the lines of Silence of the Lambs - some horror aspect, but more the detective side of things.
It is a bit more of a thriller than a horror novel. Along the lines of Silence of the Lambs - some horror aspect, but more the detective side of things.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 17, 2020
Forced to do ballet as a kid, disturbed Max becomes a ballerina killer as an adult. Before they are killed they must endure doing a ballet rehearsal. Throw in a creepy, sicko of a mother and this family is deranged. I did like the ending.
December 3, 2010
a dark story about a man with mum issues, who goes around killing dancers. it was an interesting 'crime' story
April 30, 2014
interesting crime story
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