I was drawn to this book like a magpie is drawn to shiny things. The cover is nothing original, but its bright colours and slightly cartoonish drawings really appealed to me. From the cover and the blurb on the back of the book I was expecting a fast paced book, plenty of excitement and a thrilling romantic thread running throughout. Was I going to find the book I thought I was or was I to be sadly disappointed?
Lily Redmond is on a mission. Her grandmother Lillian, for who she is named, has decided that getting old is a bit boring. To liven it up she is going to revisit her days as a Hollywood film noir starlet and try and solve the murder that brought about the end of her promising career. Lily's parents, staid, quiet, respectable, are horrified by the prospect of the scandal rearing its ugly head once more and so send her to take her grandmother on a trip to try and talk her out of it. Unfortunately when Lily arrives at Lillian's house she finds that Lillian has left already, and instead she's left the handsome form of Sam Spade Hunter handcuffed to the bed!
Sam is a private detective. His father was the bodyguard of the murder victim all those years ago (he was off duty at the time) and knows that if Lillian is going to start digging into the past that her life will become endangered once more. Very quickly Sam realises that he won't be able to continue on his mission to find and protect Lillian without Lily tagging along. The only problem is that she's the spitting image of her grandmother when she was at the peak of her career - the stuff of Sam's boyhood dreams.
And so the chase begins across America. Lily and Sam are hot on the trail of Lillian, but quickly find that they are not the only ones - there are other groups on their trail, groups eager to find Lillian and shut her up. A fantastically chaotic tale ensues, at times it feels a little like 'Wacky Races' meets 'The Godfather'. The pace moves between fast and frenetic, and the tension between Sam and Lily builds at an almost equal speed.
I could not put this book down. The cartoon style cover was an indication of the content - many of the characters are slightly exagerated in the manner of many of the great cartoons. The pace was just right, and at times I found I couldn't turn the pages fast enough. I would recommend this to anyone!
Like this? Try One For The Money by Janet Evanovich
