Cover Your Assets

When Tucker finds a cop on her doorstep, she is surprised. She's even more surprised when she's told that Evan Brice, her ex-fiance, has been found stabbed to death. His wife, Cissy, Tucker's ex-best friend because Cissy married Evan out from under Tucker, is the prime suspect. She can't believe Cissy could do it so she sets out to "help" the police find the real killer. The fact that the police don't want help doesn't stop Tucker. The fact that he'd been unfaithful and a drug addict provide more suspects for Tucker to check out. The homicide detective is not happy she's mucking around in his investigation. Joe Deegan, a detective who Tucker has had a romantic interest in, is also telling her to stop investigating. But Tucker can't stand by and let them arrest Cissy and leave Dara, Cizzy and Evan's young daughter, without a parent. Can Tucker find the real killer without putting herself in danger? Can she put up with her mother, Pookie, and her boyfriend, Bruce, living with her, not to mention their dog Muldoon? Can she find a hunk of a date for her ex-husband's wedding? This is the first book in this series that I've read. I really liked Tucker. I look forward to reading more in this series. The setting of LA for this series is great. Really adds to the ambiance of Hollywood to the story. I highly recommend this book.

In this sequel to Patricia Smiley's False Profits self-employed management consultant Tucker Sinclair finds herself tracking down the murderer of an old flame, Hollywood agent Evan Brice. The problem is that Tucker's search for a killer may lead her to the door of old friend Cissy Brice, the victim's widow, who had ample reason to want to see the last of her unfaithful, drug-addicted spouse. While annoying the police with her amateur sleuthing, Tucker has to contend with memories of Cindy's perfidy ten years earlier--Cissy had an affair with Brice while he was engaged to Tucker--as well as a host of other annoyances--starlets with skeletons, malevolent bikers, her ex-husband's impending nuptials, and her mother's increasingly organic lifestyle. Cover Your Assets is a likeable enough cozy, nicely written and sporting the occasional pleasing turn of phrase. ("I waited until she turned her back before using my hand to fan myself with the same urgency Icarus must have felt trying to get across the Aegean.") My worry, though, is that the book may not be different enough to stand out from the pack of other likeable-enough cozies, that there is nothing that distinguishes Tucker Sinclair as an unusually eccentric or otherwise compelling protagonist. Perhaps more can be done in future installments in the series with Tucker's day job, which barely figures in the storyline here. (But is management consulting a sexy or quirky enough field to add much spice?) Still, a good read that's worth your while if you're shopping for a breezy beach book. Debra Hamel -- author of Trying Neaira: The True Story of a Courtesan's Scandalous Life in ancient Greece (Yale University Press, 2003)

Tucker Sinclair has started her own management consulting business, Sinclair and Associates; though she has yet to make enough profit to hire an associate. Tucker inadvertently gets drawn into another murder case, one of her ex-fiancé, who happened to be unhappily married to her former best-friend Cissy Brice. Cissy awkwardly asks Tucker to help clean out Evan's apartment. Tucker cannot help but follow the leads she uncovers while visiting the neighborhood. When she is not on the case, Tucker has to deal with her unpredictable mother and her dog Muldoon. Joe Deegan is still interested in Tucker; perhaps she is ready to give him a chance? Skillful writing, an uncomplicated plot, and quirky characters make this book an enjoyable read.

You know what makes Patricia Smiley's books so good? The situations which arise for Tucker are things that have happened to us, or that easily could. Although I enjoy Eve Dallas and Jim Qwilleran and their millions to use wisely, I also enjoy a book that's a more everyday situation. Any one of us could marry a really rich person, or we could have some unknown relative leave us a bundle. But it's more likely we would run into an old flame, who wasn't doing so well in the current life. Patricia Smiley has a knack with this everyday thing, and it pulls you RIGHT INTO THE STORY, deep in, where there's just nowhere to go but forward. I really enjoyed "False Profits" and "Cover Your Assets." Tucker is an interesting and totally believable character, and the people/pets who inhabit her world are the kind who would be your friends, too. I'm not sure you can give higher praise than that. (And perhaps, when you read Patricia Smiley's books, with the adventures of Tucker's way-out-there mother, you will appreciate your own mother a little more?)