Blue Murder at the Pink Parrot

Ramsden's debut offers an agreeable amalgam of offbeat characters, mildly salacious humor, and tarot card reading. JJ Franklin (aka Jay) has a foot in the art world and another in the business of sexual weirdness as a professional dominatrix in the seedy Sussex seaside town of Dean's Bay. The morning after a night of debauch with publisher Ben Hammond, a new friend who turns out to like wearing women's underwear, Jay receives a call from the police to inform her that Hammond has been murdered. Meanwhile, someone appears intent on implicating Jay in the crime by dropping through her mail slot Hammond's keys and some graphic photos taken at the Pink Parrot, a local fetish club. Ramsden provides a peek into the "consensual" world of sexual fantasies both amusing and tragic as Jay sorts through various suspects among the transvestite, transgender, and fetishistic population of her acquaintance. (Jan.)