Blackstone's Pursuits

Private enquiry agent Oz Blackstone is looking for stockbroker Willie Kane who has stolen $900K from his employers. Oz finds him naked and dead on the bed of an apartment and the apartment's tenant, Prim Phillips, just walking in looking for her sister who'd been staying there. Oz and Prim join forces to find her sister and the missing money. This was almost more of a romance, told from Oz' perspective, but it did have humor and suspense enough to keep it a mystery. The cover describes the book as "A tale of love, greed, murder--and lethal seduction..." which is quite accurate. I liked Oz, although he seemed a bit juvenile, his father and his sister, but didn't care much for Prim and it ended with an ethical decision I wouldn't have made. I found it to be an enjoyable, rather sexual, light, quick read and a good introduction to the character of Oz. I've enjoyed other books in the series and will keep reading Oz's adventures.

Jardine was already an established crime novelist when he wrote this novel ,thanks to the long established Edinburgh police procedurals featuring Bob Skinner .The Oz Blackstone novels are lighter in tone and range more freely geographically -this one takes the hero outside his native Edinburgh and into the highlands of Scotland and across the pond to Switzerland . Oz-it is short for Oswald -is a private enquiry agent doing rather unglamorous work for his clients ,mostly routine interviewing on insurance or accident claims .A prominent Edinburgh stockbroking company calls on his services when an employee ,Henry Kane ,embezzles £ 300,000 from them ;they want it back but discreetly and without publicity .He is despatched to the flat of an aspiring actress,Dawn Phillips ,with whom Kane is living ,and asked to persuade him to hand over the key that will gain access to the funds .On arrival he finds no trace of Dawn but Kane is present -alas ,being dead ,he is no position to return the funds .The man has been stabbed . Enter both the local police and Dawn' sister the delicious Primavera,just back from a sojourn as an aid worker in wartorn Africa .She and Oz hit it off immediately and at her instigation set out both to locate Dawn ,who is the prime suspect in the eyes of the police ,and to get the loot . The quest takes them first to the Lyceum Theatre where she used to perform .The somewhat camp artistic director steers them to the Highlands where she is working on a major Hollywood movie ,a remake of Kidnapped starring an Aussie-American hunk ,Miles Grayson ( a thinly disguised portarit of Mel Gibson ,methinks )and thence to the homes of both sets of parents Eventually they wind up in Switzerland and recover the cash from the numbered bank account when they are taken captive by the villain ,before the book reaches its cheerfully amoral conclusion . Oz and Primavera are engaging souls -quick with the repartee and badinage ,and there is a strong comedic vein in the book especially as their plans for sex are frustrated by fate ,in the form of non-functioning condom machines and untimely parental intervention .I did not spot the baddie and there is s twist ending that pleased me . The police are portrayed in a quite cynical light being either obtuse or crooked The tone is light and brisk but its not quite a cosy being sexually quite explicit and a tad amoral but I enjoyed this and recommend it to lovers of the lighter crime novel and not averse to brisk humour in their reading