Ever since Dashiell Hammett's The Thin Man
(1934) introduced detective Nick Charles and his wife, Nora, readers have craved crime tales where the snappy romantic repartee sets off more sparks than the gunshots. Kenner's festive, fast-talking romantic mystery (Undercover Lovers, etc.) satisfies that craving. Determined to settle down before her rapidly approaching 30th birthday, impoverished artist Jacey Wilder, having given up collage-creation for a career in accounting, hires private investigator/crime writer Dave Anderson (who is, by his own admission, not the best but definitely the cheapest). Jacey wants Dave to find her missing boyfriend, Albert Alcott, a lawyer she picked up at a fancy hotel four months earlier and then ditched after mistaking him for a serial killer. Unbeknownst to Jacey, Albert and a few mob thugs are looking for her—and the cache of stolen jewels hidden in her car. The protagonists' sexy sparring infuses the narrative with wit and energy, as do their brushes with danger. Though Dave is more a tough-talking Mike Hammer–type detective than a suave Charles, Kenner's flair for dialogue and eccentric characterizations could well make the wisecracking hunk and his deceptively ditsy client the Nick and Nora of the new millennium. (Jan.)
