Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Jenn's Review: Agnes and the Hitman

Summary: from Amazon.com

Take one food writer named Cranky Agnes, add a hitman named Shane, mix them together with a Southern mob wedding, a missing necklace, two annoyed flamingos, and a dog named Rhett and you’ve got a recipe for a sexy, hilarious novel about the disastrous side of true love… Agnes Crandall’s life goes awry when a dognapper invades her kitchen one night, seriously hampering her attempts to put on a wedding that she’s staked her entire net worth on. Then a hero climbs through her bedroom window. His name is Shane, no last name, just Shane, and he has his own problems: he’s got a big hit scheduled, a rival trying to take him out, and an ex-mobster uncle asking him to protect some little kid named Agnes. When he finds out that Agnes isn’t so little, his uncle has forgotten to mention a missing five million bucks he might have lost in Agnes’s house, and his last hit was a miss, Shane’s life isn’t looking so good, either. Then a bunch of lowlifes come looking for the money, a string of hit men show up for Agnes, and some wedding guests gather with intent to throw more than rice. Agnes and Shane have their hands full with greed, florists, treachery, flamingos, mayhem, mothers of the bride, and—most dangerous of all—each other. Agnes and the Hitman is the perfect combination of sugar and spice, sweet and salty—a novel of delicious proportions.

Review:
I know, I don't read a lot of chick-lit, but this is chick-lit with crime and adventure thrown in.

Grandson: Has it got any sports in it?
Grandfather: Are you kidding? Fencing, fighting, torture,
revenge, giants, monsters, chases, escapes, true love, miracles!
Grandson: Doesn't sound too bad. I'll try and stay awake.
Grandfather: Oh, well, thank you. That's very kind of you.
Your vote of confidence is overwhelming.
~The Princess Bride


It was the title that caught my attention, so I bought it on a whim. I needed a bit of light reading and this fit the bill. I found there to be an excellent balance of Jennifer Crusie's (contemporary-chick-lit-romance) and Bob Mayer's (military/science fiction thrillers) writing styles, neither of whom are authors I would read separately, but together I find them delightful.


It is interesting to hear the narrative from both Agnes's (Crusie) and Shane's (Mayer) point of view, sometimes overlapping chronologically and sometimes moving us ahead, but never in a confusing manner, as so often can occur with overlapping chronology. The writing styles are smooth and blended into each other such as to be indistinguishable to me, though perhaps if I was more familiar with their separate bibliographies, I would not find that to be true. There are some excellent plot twists as well as some downright laugh-out-loud moments. Though slightly far fetched in storyline, this is easy to overlook when given so much to sink one's teeth into.


I intend to go back and add their first collaboration, Don't Look Down, to my collection as another fast-paced, entertaining read.


Overall 4.9/5.0





2 comments:

tinylittlelibrarian said...

I read Don't Look Down on vacation this summer and really liked it. It has an adorable preschooler obsessed with Wonder Woman and an ultra-wimpy Jim Carrey type who wants to be Rambo. It was funny, though, the combo of the two authors. There was all this military stuff (presumably hitman stuff in Agnes :)) and then there'd be a steamy sex scene and I'd remember my beloved Jennifer Crusie was there. :)

Jenn said...

I look forward to picking up Don't Look Down next time I need some light reading, as it's now sitting on my shelf.

:D