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Cast in Wax
BREMERHAVEN, MASSACHUSETTS, WAS PROUD OF ITS MACABRE HISTORY ...
But the haunted houses that attracted tourists were horribly eclipsed by the skeletons that turned up during detective Rhianna Curtis's visit to her hometown. Discovered behind a brick wall in the wax museum, Brodie Morgan's remains told a story of brutal murder committed ten years earlier ...
... and of a brutal murderer still in their midst. With too many suspects and too few clues, Rhianna needed all the help she could get. Even when it came from catfooted, cryptic Mark Reimer. He knew he was Rhianna's chief suspect --- and never once denied that he might be the killer.
But the haunted houses that attracted tourists were horribly eclipsed by the skeletons that turned up during detective Rhianna Curtis's visit to her hometown. Discovered behind a brick wall in the wax museum, Brodie Morgan's remains told a story of brutal murder committed ten years earlier ...
... and of a brutal murderer still in their midst. With too many suspects and too few clues, Rhianna needed all the help she could get. Even when it came from catfooted, cryptic Mark Reimer. He knew he was Rhianna's chief suspect --- and never once denied that he might be the killer.
- GenresRomance
251 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 1988
16 people want to read
About the author
Jenna Ryan
105 books129 followersJenna Ryan was born in Victoria, British Columbia. After long stints in different cities across Canada, she returned home to Vancouver Island where she has lived ever since. She has had thirty-one books published in the Harlequin Intrigue series. Her ideas come from real life, and she is helped in her writing by her sister Kathy.
She enjoys reading and is a big fan of women's fiction, psychological suspense and mystery novels. She also enjoys watching classic suspense movies. She loves strong heroines, heroes with character, romance stories and a good whodunit by the fire on a rainy night.
Her heritage is a blend of English and Irish — which is probably where the gift of blarney comes from. She is unmarried, but involved with a wonderful man. She also has a little white cat named Sheena.
Whenever she is not writing, she travels as much as time and finances will allow. After North America, Europe is her favorite continent to explore, because it was in those countries that many of the myths and legends she drew upon in her early years of writing were born.
Growing up, she considered various careers and dabbled in several of them, including, after university, the travel industry, tourism, sales and modeling. Work in the fashion industry in Toronto and Montreal gave her an interesting peek into various aspects of that world. She learned that where money, power and people come together, there will always be unpredictability — an element she feels is essential to a strong mystery. Add a healthy measure of personal conflict, an intriguing setting and a spicy romance into the mix, and you have the ingredients for what she believes to be the best of all possible stories — a great romantic suspense.
She enjoys reading and is a big fan of women's fiction, psychological suspense and mystery novels. She also enjoys watching classic suspense movies. She loves strong heroines, heroes with character, romance stories and a good whodunit by the fire on a rainy night.
Her heritage is a blend of English and Irish — which is probably where the gift of blarney comes from. She is unmarried, but involved with a wonderful man. She also has a little white cat named Sheena.
Whenever she is not writing, she travels as much as time and finances will allow. After North America, Europe is her favorite continent to explore, because it was in those countries that many of the myths and legends she drew upon in her early years of writing were born.
Growing up, she considered various careers and dabbled in several of them, including, after university, the travel industry, tourism, sales and modeling. Work in the fashion industry in Toronto and Montreal gave her an interesting peek into various aspects of that world. She learned that where money, power and people come together, there will always be unpredictability — an element she feels is essential to a strong mystery. Add a healthy measure of personal conflict, an intriguing setting and a spicy romance into the mix, and you have the ingredients for what she believes to be the best of all possible stories — a great romantic suspense.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
July 26, 2016
Private investigator/detective Rhianna Curtis visits her hometown of Bremerhaven, Massachusetts, after being away for many years.
Ten years ago Rhianna got a phone call at night from a friend (Brodie) who wanted her to meet him behind Bremerhaven's wax museum---he had info about who was behind the East End robberies and wanted to talk to her about it. When Rhianna got to the museum Brodie never showed up and has been missing ever since.
Now, ten years later, a fire mysteriously breaks out at the museum. Rhianna investigates and finds, behind a crumbling wall, the bones of a body that is believed to be Brodie. Wanting to stay in Bremerhaven to find out who murdered her friend, she gets a job as a tour guide at the wax museum. While there she runs into old acquaintance Mark Reimer (Brodie's cousin) who used to work at the wax museum ten years ago. Mark now owns a construction company in New York. He also inherited the museum from his uncle and that is why he's back in Bremerhaven. Rhianna and Brodie find themselves attracted to each other while they both try to find out who murdered Brodie.
I really enjoyed this book. It had an interesting cast of characters/suspects, a heroine with a fear of spiders, a spooky wax museum, carnivals, tarantulas, and a great eerie atmosphere. This was a fun and entertaining older Harlequin Intrigue!
Ten years ago Rhianna got a phone call at night from a friend (Brodie) who wanted her to meet him behind Bremerhaven's wax museum---he had info about who was behind the East End robberies and wanted to talk to her about it. When Rhianna got to the museum Brodie never showed up and has been missing ever since.
Now, ten years later, a fire mysteriously breaks out at the museum. Rhianna investigates and finds, behind a crumbling wall, the bones of a body that is believed to be Brodie. Wanting to stay in Bremerhaven to find out who murdered her friend, she gets a job as a tour guide at the wax museum. While there she runs into old acquaintance Mark Reimer (Brodie's cousin) who used to work at the wax museum ten years ago. Mark now owns a construction company in New York. He also inherited the museum from his uncle and that is why he's back in Bremerhaven. Rhianna and Brodie find themselves attracted to each other while they both try to find out who murdered Brodie.
I really enjoyed this book. It had an interesting cast of characters/suspects, a heroine with a fear of spiders, a spooky wax museum, carnivals, tarantulas, and a great eerie atmosphere. This was a fun and entertaining older Harlequin Intrigue!
May 16, 2025
Cast in Wax a Review by Chad “The Hammer” Heater
This was quite the fitting title for Harlequin Intrigue #88. Like wax, this cast was unmoving. And remained that way until things sort of heated up 177 pages into the novel. How much heat was it you ask? Not nearly enough to melt wax! Although there was some added later on with the typical harlequin nipple play we’ve all come to expect… but what about the cast that is index and the overall narrative? I’m glad you asked! Read on for another inexplicable book report by yours truly!
We open by being introduced to Rihanna. A native of the spooky hamlet known as Bremerhaven that moved away ten years ago to the big city to become a “private investigator.” But the only privates we find her investigating are that of Mark’s. And again, that doesn’t happen until later.
Rihanna reunited with her old friends and cast of characters. There’s her goth punk friend Sam in which is also her roommate. There is Mark. The new owner of the Wax Museum he recently inherited from his uncle. Dag. The broh. And Marion and Billie the crazy sisters that are crazy and do crazy things throughout.
In the first day back, there is a terrible fire at the wax museum. A fire so terrible Rihanna falls through the floor discovering a murder scene from ten years ago! You see, dear reader, Brodie (the son of Reed and cousins of Mark) had disappeared a decade ago! And no one knew where he went. They didn’t search very hard either because he just vanished. But he was murdered! But by whom, you ask? Indeed. By whom…
Fortunately for the sleep hamlet known as Bremerhaven, Rihanna the investigator of privates is on the scene. She begins sleuthing finding a bracelet and some lozenges. Her first clues! From there she slowly begins pulling the sweater and eventually the whole thing unravels.
But what about prime suspects? Could it be Dag Broh? What about Sam? Or is it the handsome, lean, tall, muscular, blonde, Mark that did it? Striking and potentially dangerous? “Sploosh” Rihanna thinks to herself.
As the sweater is slowly pulled she leaves the fair one night to find a tarantula in her car. Eek! She screamed. Fortunately Mark showed up out of nowhere to capture the tarantula and save Rihanna from her phobia. But why was Mark there? It was too convenient. She’ll need to investigate his privates.
Now, Rihanna needed a side hustle. So she worked in the wax museum as well. This also allowed her to be closer to Mark and see if she could find any nipple arousing clues. During the day she was a Vampira tour guide and at night a PI trying to solve a murder!
Fast forward tens of pages of nothing really much going on just hearing about Billie always watching from afar. Oh! We also get a random switch in narrator which was confusing and unexpected. So we all of sudden got to see things from Mark’s perspective. Which immediately rules him out as a suspect. I guess Jenna Ryan remembered a lesson from her creative writing courses at Gudger College and decided to get Faulkner with it but pulled it off unsuccessfully. Any who…
She sets the scene for us… it’s a full moon. Sam is making moon tea at home and Rihanna decides to go for a dip in the local pond. She is scantily clad and barefoot walking through the dense New England thicket. She deathly afraid of spiders but doesn’t give two shits about the spider’s lemon-like disease carrying cousin the tick. She ditches her loose cotton t shirt and denim cutoffs and feels the moss under her bare feet’s as she glides into the pond….
Nothing happens. She decides she’s had enough time cooling off and heads back to town… but wait! Someone dressed as a Jawa (someone had better call George Lucas because I smell a lawsuit) pounce som her in front of the Pullman! Ouch! The unidentified assailant has her arm behind her back and it hurts! What’s our protagonist going to do?! She remembers that she’s a good screamer. She takes a deep breath and screams like a banshee for all of Bremerhaven to hear! This startles the assailant and gives Rihanna an opening she reverse headbutts and horse kicks the Jawa right in their Cape Canaverals! They fall back and Rihanna runs like the wind! She says screw the no shoes and I doesn’t care about her lungs, she needs to get away from the murderer! Half a mile from the apartment where Sam is moon teaing it up, guess who appears out of nowhere oddly Jawa dressed…? Mark!
But wait. It can’t be Mark. His Cape Canaverals seem just fine. Fortunately for Rihanna she is a private investigator and is about to get down the business. Mark comments on her shoeless feet and picks her up off the ground to carry her. How romantic. (I guess that’s what I was waiting for the year I went shoeless in Boulder. But that’s another story and one that is between me and my therapist). He takes her not back to moon tea central but his own place. They kiss. Yep. That’s it. Not a great private investigator. At least not yet!
Next we find our heroine in the wax museum after hours with her best friend the moon tea maven. They stumble upon a bottle of homemade hooch and get tipsy. But they then find themselves locked in and all the wax figures begin to move. Apparently they’re also animatronic? Which I would assume isn’t good for the wax because it would crack? But apparently Gudger College’s creative writing program wasn’t concerned about the minute details. Anywho, they escape and Mark shows up again! This time he brings Rihanna back to his place AGAIN! due to the night construction that is going to happen to fix the burner part of the building. Rihanna wakes up in her undies with a headache and isn’t sure what happened.
The next night, Sam convinces Rihanna to go to the movies. Mark tags along. They watch a spooky movie and everyone is dressed up. A werewolf then approaches Rihanna, threatens her and begins choking her with a phone cord. In the movie theater! But the werewolf doesn’t get away with it and runs away. But before running away, they planted a black widow spider in the seats! Everyone freaks out especially Rihanna due to her arachnophobia but still no fear of ticks. When mark comes back he says it’s too late to chase the werewolf and they got away. Because apparently werewolves are really fast and in Bremerhaven there are too many people dressed as werewolves to find the real culprit.
Mark brings Rihanna back to his place again but his time she was investigates his privates and explodes as he’s between her legs and there is slow love making that happens with some light nipple play. Everyone rejoices.
The next day they are moving things out of Reed’s house, Rihanna goes to the wax museum, she is confronted by Billie and her sister Marion. Marion has her at gun point. Rihanna has a knife. Marion reveals how she wanted to kill Reed because he bought the land and tore down her parents diner and built the wax museum. But she accidentally killed Brohdie instead and loved watching the disappearance torment Reed. Rihanna apparently is confident at throwing knives and finds an opening to throw the knife. She grazes Marion’s arm. “Where is Mark when she needs him?!”
Apparently Marion slipped him a couple mickies. But hold on! That doesn’t stop Mark because he shows up to save the day! He disarms Marion and then calls in the police. He then reveals to Rihanna that he knew it was Marion and had been following her all day and that this was the trap she set for her using Rihanna as bait. Rihanna is fine with this. Yes. She is fine with this. Those must be some amazing privates because one would assume that level of potential life ending betrayal would be a relationship killer but again, our author went to Gudger College.
All is forgiven, Rihanna gives up her big city life and becomes manager of the wax museum full time with her side hustle as Mark’s personal private investigator THE END.
Two stars out of Pho. It was a nice change having a harlequin murder mystery than the typical romance. But it still wasn’t very good. Could’ve used more nipple play. You can never have too much nipple play.
This was quite the fitting title for Harlequin Intrigue #88. Like wax, this cast was unmoving. And remained that way until things sort of heated up 177 pages into the novel. How much heat was it you ask? Not nearly enough to melt wax! Although there was some added later on with the typical harlequin nipple play we’ve all come to expect… but what about the cast that is index and the overall narrative? I’m glad you asked! Read on for another inexplicable book report by yours truly!
We open by being introduced to Rihanna. A native of the spooky hamlet known as Bremerhaven that moved away ten years ago to the big city to become a “private investigator.” But the only privates we find her investigating are that of Mark’s. And again, that doesn’t happen until later.
Rihanna reunited with her old friends and cast of characters. There’s her goth punk friend Sam in which is also her roommate. There is Mark. The new owner of the Wax Museum he recently inherited from his uncle. Dag. The broh. And Marion and Billie the crazy sisters that are crazy and do crazy things throughout.
In the first day back, there is a terrible fire at the wax museum. A fire so terrible Rihanna falls through the floor discovering a murder scene from ten years ago! You see, dear reader, Brodie (the son of Reed and cousins of Mark) had disappeared a decade ago! And no one knew where he went. They didn’t search very hard either because he just vanished. But he was murdered! But by whom, you ask? Indeed. By whom…
Fortunately for the sleep hamlet known as Bremerhaven, Rihanna the investigator of privates is on the scene. She begins sleuthing finding a bracelet and some lozenges. Her first clues! From there she slowly begins pulling the sweater and eventually the whole thing unravels.
But what about prime suspects? Could it be Dag Broh? What about Sam? Or is it the handsome, lean, tall, muscular, blonde, Mark that did it? Striking and potentially dangerous? “Sploosh” Rihanna thinks to herself.
As the sweater is slowly pulled she leaves the fair one night to find a tarantula in her car. Eek! She screamed. Fortunately Mark showed up out of nowhere to capture the tarantula and save Rihanna from her phobia. But why was Mark there? It was too convenient. She’ll need to investigate his privates.
Now, Rihanna needed a side hustle. So she worked in the wax museum as well. This also allowed her to be closer to Mark and see if she could find any nipple arousing clues. During the day she was a Vampira tour guide and at night a PI trying to solve a murder!
Fast forward tens of pages of nothing really much going on just hearing about Billie always watching from afar. Oh! We also get a random switch in narrator which was confusing and unexpected. So we all of sudden got to see things from Mark’s perspective. Which immediately rules him out as a suspect. I guess Jenna Ryan remembered a lesson from her creative writing courses at Gudger College and decided to get Faulkner with it but pulled it off unsuccessfully. Any who…
She sets the scene for us… it’s a full moon. Sam is making moon tea at home and Rihanna decides to go for a dip in the local pond. She is scantily clad and barefoot walking through the dense New England thicket. She deathly afraid of spiders but doesn’t give two shits about the spider’s lemon-like disease carrying cousin the tick. She ditches her loose cotton t shirt and denim cutoffs and feels the moss under her bare feet’s as she glides into the pond….
Nothing happens. She decides she’s had enough time cooling off and heads back to town… but wait! Someone dressed as a Jawa (someone had better call George Lucas because I smell a lawsuit) pounce som her in front of the Pullman! Ouch! The unidentified assailant has her arm behind her back and it hurts! What’s our protagonist going to do?! She remembers that she’s a good screamer. She takes a deep breath and screams like a banshee for all of Bremerhaven to hear! This startles the assailant and gives Rihanna an opening she reverse headbutts and horse kicks the Jawa right in their Cape Canaverals! They fall back and Rihanna runs like the wind! She says screw the no shoes and I doesn’t care about her lungs, she needs to get away from the murderer! Half a mile from the apartment where Sam is moon teaing it up, guess who appears out of nowhere oddly Jawa dressed…? Mark!
But wait. It can’t be Mark. His Cape Canaverals seem just fine. Fortunately for Rihanna she is a private investigator and is about to get down the business. Mark comments on her shoeless feet and picks her up off the ground to carry her. How romantic. (I guess that’s what I was waiting for the year I went shoeless in Boulder. But that’s another story and one that is between me and my therapist). He takes her not back to moon tea central but his own place. They kiss. Yep. That’s it. Not a great private investigator. At least not yet!
Next we find our heroine in the wax museum after hours with her best friend the moon tea maven. They stumble upon a bottle of homemade hooch and get tipsy. But they then find themselves locked in and all the wax figures begin to move. Apparently they’re also animatronic? Which I would assume isn’t good for the wax because it would crack? But apparently Gudger College’s creative writing program wasn’t concerned about the minute details. Anywho, they escape and Mark shows up again! This time he brings Rihanna back to his place AGAIN! due to the night construction that is going to happen to fix the burner part of the building. Rihanna wakes up in her undies with a headache and isn’t sure what happened.
The next night, Sam convinces Rihanna to go to the movies. Mark tags along. They watch a spooky movie and everyone is dressed up. A werewolf then approaches Rihanna, threatens her and begins choking her with a phone cord. In the movie theater! But the werewolf doesn’t get away with it and runs away. But before running away, they planted a black widow spider in the seats! Everyone freaks out especially Rihanna due to her arachnophobia but still no fear of ticks. When mark comes back he says it’s too late to chase the werewolf and they got away. Because apparently werewolves are really fast and in Bremerhaven there are too many people dressed as werewolves to find the real culprit.
Mark brings Rihanna back to his place again but his time she was investigates his privates and explodes as he’s between her legs and there is slow love making that happens with some light nipple play. Everyone rejoices.
The next day they are moving things out of Reed’s house, Rihanna goes to the wax museum, she is confronted by Billie and her sister Marion. Marion has her at gun point. Rihanna has a knife. Marion reveals how she wanted to kill Reed because he bought the land and tore down her parents diner and built the wax museum. But she accidentally killed Brohdie instead and loved watching the disappearance torment Reed. Rihanna apparently is confident at throwing knives and finds an opening to throw the knife. She grazes Marion’s arm. “Where is Mark when she needs him?!”
Apparently Marion slipped him a couple mickies. But hold on! That doesn’t stop Mark because he shows up to save the day! He disarms Marion and then calls in the police. He then reveals to Rihanna that he knew it was Marion and had been following her all day and that this was the trap she set for her using Rihanna as bait. Rihanna is fine with this. Yes. She is fine with this. Those must be some amazing privates because one would assume that level of potential life ending betrayal would be a relationship killer but again, our author went to Gudger College.
All is forgiven, Rihanna gives up her big city life and becomes manager of the wax museum full time with her side hustle as Mark’s personal private investigator THE END.
Two stars out of Pho. It was a nice change having a harlequin murder mystery than the typical romance. But it still wasn’t very good. Could’ve used more nipple play. You can never have too much nipple play.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 21, 2014
I first read this book over 20 years ago, and recently had to order a copy off Amazon so I could read it again (even though it had been about 20 years since I last read it). I have to admit enjoying this book as much this time as I did back then, if not more. The setting, the imagery, the characters... everything about it just makes me wish I could live in this book :) So glad I was able to find it, again...
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews