Author: Renée Pawlish
Publisher: Barnes & Noble
Rating: WARTY!
DISCLOSURE: Unlike the majority of reviews in this blog, I've neither bought this book nor borrowed it from the library. This is a "galley" copy ebook, supplied by Net Galley. I'm not receiving (nor will I expect to receive or accept) remuneration for this review. The chance to read a new book is often enough reward aplenty!
This novel sounded really interesting from the blurb, which only means that the blurb did its job - it lured me in. Unfortunately, this novel was not for me. I don't know what it was, but it made my skin crawl the minute I started reading it. It just felt completely wrong. I think part of it was that it tried way too hard to be what it patently was not: a hard-bitten noir-ish novel harking back to the classics of yesteryear. The problem with that was that it was set in contemporary times, so neither the attitude nor the lingo fit at all.
Instead of getting into it, I found myself stifling laughs at how ridiculous it truly was, with the caricature of Denver-based PI Reed Ferguson being beaten up in the bathroom by the even more caricatured brace of "goons" (yes, that word was actually spoken) named Tyrone and Oscar, when all they'd been sent to do was pick up the PI on behalf of some insanely rich dude. The PI's wise-cracks when he was punched were ludicrous. I have no idea what the author was trying to do, but none of it made any sense in the context in which it was presented, and the flashback to the eighties in the dance bar to which the PI was forcefully taken as the novel began was cringe-worthy.
The plot is that daddy warbucks wants the PI to escort his daughter because he thinks she's at risk for kidnapping. Why this is suddenly a threat now, when she's been all through high school with no issues, then all through college with no issues, and now she's been gallivanting around town partying all the time without even so much as a whisper of a threat is never explained (at least not in the portion I read). The PI is blackmailed into it because of some shady event in his past, but the assignment is so open-ended that it makes no sense. There is no threat to his daughter - there is only daddy warbucks's fear of one, so when is this assignment supposed to end? The PI is too dumb to even ask.
And why the PI? Why not hire a professional security detail? Why not hire a couple of moonlighting cops? None of this is even raised, much less dealt with. Worse than that, the girl is the polar opposite of Mr. Hard-Ass-the-PI. She dresses in pink and is a 'girly-girl' as far as I could see, so we're truly hit over the head with this tired cliché of square-peg versus round-hole (so to speak), which frankly held no appeal whatsoever for me. It's been done far too many times before. This one offered no promise of anything original or off-the-beaten-track based on what I'd read thus far, and there isn't even the promise of any mystery to it.
I cannot recommend this.
