Blah-, Blah-, Blah- Nik
Written: Apr 20 '06
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Product Rating:
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Pros: hmmm.... she defines "anthracite" correctly?
Cons: way over the top... Does Scottoline get paid by the mention for those shoes?
The Bottom Line: Lisa Scottoline ripped off a silly thriller about a judge with a dirty little secret and an autistic godchild. Would that the judge were autistic instead.
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| scmrak's Full Review: Dirty Blonde Books |
Cate Fante is pretty sure she has it all: at the ripe old age of thirty-nine, the diminutive (but extremely attractive) blonde's been elevated from her partnership at a white-shoe Philadelphia law firm to the bench of the U S Circuit Court. To go along with the nifty black robe, she has a crackerjack secretary and a pair of lovable goofs for law clerks. She has a hot stockbroker giving her gift-wrapped boxes from Tiffany's, too, and a dear friend with whom she can do the girl-talk thing and get in some vicarious time as a substitute mom. Cate also has a secret vice, though: she likes the "rough trade." Whenever she gets stressed, Cate takes a side trip into a sleazy dive where she picks up a reasonably attractive man and the two of them do the horizontal bop. Not very judge-y, eh?
The inevitable collision of Cate's daytime job and her nighttime slumming arrives when she's been on the bench for a few months. When a winner in her courtroom turns into a corpse in the streets followed in rapid succession by the loser, the police investigation turns up a timeline of the past six months documenting her late-night no-tell motel antics. To make matters worse, her latest pickup turns up dead after she'd stalked out of his motel room, and - blast her bad luck! - the whole thing's on video! Arrrghhhh! The whole shebang has her shaking in her Manolo Blahniks!
With one detective on her side and another gone off the reservation and stalking her, Cate's life could only get worse if she lost her job over her private indiscretions. Guess what... At least it gives the Dirty Blonde plenty of time off to solve the double murder, not to mention ruin some $500 silk jackets and several pairs of Blahniks. Yes, Cate definitely likes her Blahniks.
Throughout a succession of courtroom dramas featuring the women of Benedetta Rosato's Philly law firm, Lisa Scottoline has developed a certain style. Bennie's associates are variously flighty and self-deprecating, clothes-conscious (especially shoes) to the extreme, and brilliant but completely lacking common sense. It's no different here: Cate at one point wonders whether the fire stairwell down which she's fleeing the gun-waving villain goes all the way to the ground (what good would a fire stairwell be if it didn't go all the way to the ground?) As one who has read books in the Rosato series might expect, Cate is possessed of a bizarre sense of humor. It's not bizarre for its content, it's bizarre for its timing - she seems to get giggly when she's in mortal danger. Suffice it to say, Scottoline's characters invariably tread the line between endearing and irritating.
In Dirty Blonde, Scottoline's protagonist sits firmly on the "irritating" side of that line. Maybe it's merely because she's a slut - double standards be damned. Perhaps it's the incessant product placement for the Three Ms - Mercedes, Mac, and Manolo - like an upscale version of Stephanie Plum and those TastyCakes of hers. Perhaps it's that "smart girl acting stupid" plot; which is in no way as interesting as a "smart girl acting smart" or even a "stupid girl acting stupid" plot, at least in my book. It could be the whiny self-talk. Cate Fante doesn't get much help from Scottoline in making herself real, either, hard as Scottoline tries by adding a shoehorned-in trip to hew now-abandoned coal-mining hometown to lend a Horatio Alger air to the foxy (but slutty) Cate.
Worst of all, however, is Scottoline's apparent hunger to impart to the plot as many twists as it can possibly bear - and then some. Here's a thought for mystery writers: your reader is playing the game with your protagonist, and wants desperately to outsmart him or her. So drop a clue or two along the way; because the reader will look back and say, "Oh! I shoulda noticed that!" While it is perfectly acceptable to plant those casual clues about the real villain and reveal him/her in your thrilling (and startling) climax, it is not acceptable to simply pluck your villain out of thin air, especially one who is only a minor character. And the additional, closing plot twist this time? It was simply too much.
Consider this a pan, for a main character who is too far over the top and a plot that's so twisted it can bite its own tail.
capsule: good girl gone bad gone good, OnStar saves the day, dead Elvis, sleazy bars, vicarious motherhood, hot stockbroker, "Cold Case," "L A Law" meets the information age
Books in the Bennie Rosato series:
Dead Ringer
Devil's Corner
Moment of Truth
Recommended:
No
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