Author: Gemma Halliday
Publisher: CreateSpace Publishing
Rating: WARTY!
Hopefully this isn't book one in the "Spying in High Heels" series, because why write one novel when you can milk the same story for several? Once in a while, a writer makes it work, but more often than not, not. Hopefully this is a one-off (I was wrong - this is one of a series, unfortunately).
The ebook for this has a page listing reviews complimentary of the book. I don't get this. If it's an ebook, you're not perusing it in the library or the bookstore, considering purchasing it, you already have it. What is the point of trying to sell you a book which you already have? Seriously, how dumb is that? And how dumb do they publishers think we are to be swayed by the opinion of someone we don't even know? I often find I do not enjoy a book which was recommended to me by someone I know and whose opinion I typically value, so what makes these people think I'll be blindly swayed by an opinion of someone who I have no reason to rely on?! I've never understood that mentality. It's cynical at best and moronic at worst.
That gripe aside, this novel sounded tempting from the blurb, but his means the commercial did its job - it lured me in. I have always felt there's a place for a 'girlie' spy or detective novel - where the superficially highly feminine main character turns out to be tough and smart underneath her misleading exterior. I have yet to find such a novel. I'm actually in process of planning my own to fill that void.
In this case, the woman, Maddie Springer isn't even a detective. She's a brand-name obsessed children's shoe designer who's dating a high-priced lawyer, Richard Howe, who evidently finds himself on the wrong side of the law and disappears without warning or trace. His girlfriend (Maddie) - for reasons unexplained and sans motive - starts to get involved in finding out what happened instead of leaving it to the police and the FBI.
There is neither valid nor credible reason given for her obsessive involvement. Yes, on the one hand, it's great to have a proactive female character instead of one who sits and weeps inconsolably for her lost love, but no, it fails when you make your character do dumb stuff which serves no apparent purpose other than to throw her into the arms of her designated beau, and in the process makes her look like a busy-body at best, and a moron at worst.
This is supposed to be a mystery, but all mystery fled the premises when her love interest showed up. No, Richard is not her love interest. That's a lie. Her love interest is Los Angeles Police Detective Jack Ramirez, who appears (and transparently so) to be a bad guy at first blush. From the very first page he appeared on, it was glaringly obvious that she was going to ditch yesterday's love of her life and end up in bed with this rough-looking, tanned, muscled, tall and handsome guy, who merely looked like a villain. It was so obvious that it was as painful as it was pathetic and predictable.
Gone from that point onwards was any motivation on her part for becoming involved in finding out about Richard, because it was so glaringly obvious that he would be a bad guy or dead, or on the out for some other reason before this novel was over and she would be done with him. It was starkly apparent that she would be deeply enveloped in the strong, protective arms of this new guy. Kiss-off any idea or hope of her proving to be a tough, smart, independent operator. Nope, she was immediately transmogrified, from that very page, into a maiden in distress, and this novel lost all allure for me. I refuse to recommend it.
