It All Began in Monte Carlo

At the start of Adler’s bubbly thriller, the follow-up to There’s Something About St. Tropez, Sunny Alvarez boards a Christmas Eve flight from L.A. to Paris, along with her pet Chihuahua, angry that her fiancé, PI Mac Reilly of TV’s Mac Reilly’s Malibu Mysteries, has once again postponed their wedding. On the plane, Sunny meets Eddie Johanssen (aka “Prince Charming”), who suggests another destination: Monte Carlo’s Grand Hotel. After arriving alone in Monte Carlo, Sunny improbably befriends an aging Lithuanian prostitute, Kitty Ratte, who hangs out in the Grand Hotel bar—and turns out to be a psychopath. Sunny is thrilled when both Eddie and Mac show up, but the jealous Kitty soon creates trouble. Mac ends up investigating a series of jewelry store heists, while clueless Sunny, in another unlikely twist, takes a jewelry courier job for an enigmatic Indian woman. The gorgeous locale and Sunny and Mac’s romantic give-and-take more than compensate for the less than credible plot. (July)