Lament for a Lounge Lizard

Here's the thing - I love Camilla MacPhee. She's cranky, in-your-face, witty, sarcastic as all hell, and always catches the bad guy (usually with the help of her obnoxious ne'er do well secretary, Alvin). I've read the Camilla MacPhee mysteries by Mary Jane Maffini each and every time a new one has come out, since the first time I met her and thought, "Wow, now here's a lady with style." This book? It's not a Camilla MacPhee mystery. I chewed my lip. I pondered. I bought (of course) and had her autograph it for me, but a small little voice said, "But what if it's not as good as Camilla?" No worries. First off, Fiona Silk is just as fun a character, albeit in a strikingly different way. Fiona has similar sarcastic comments, but she tends to keep them as thoughts, and she's a pushover for a sob-story (or, indeed, for pretty much any request - she's missing the "just say no!" gene). She's a failed romance writer (and the parts where her "romance novel" is glimpsed by the reader are a real blast), living in the small fictional Quebec town of St. Aubaine, which is resoundingly familiar for those of us nearby another Quebec town, lemme tellya. Someone offs a man she had an almost fling with eight-nine years ago, and leaves him naked in her bed, with a crazy-glue applied sly grin to greet her. Fiona's alibi of being three-sheets-to-the-wind, not to mention her passing out drunk when she saw him and not reporting it until the morning, leave her a little bit in the lurch. So, with the police after her, gossip lingering, and the media hot on her tail, Fiona has to get over being a pushover, before someone else pushes her over permanently. Delightful, funny, and - as always - full of a razor sarcastic wit, Mary Jane Maffini once again delivers a grand little mystery. I do look forward to the next Fiona Silk... just please, a Camilla first? 'Nathan