Review: It's about time we got lit for sexy older chicks!
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 05 1, 2012
Not going to recap the story since other reviewers already have...Playing With The Bad Boys is a fun murder mystery involving a sexy if very snoopy hotel manager with frustrated dreams of working on the police force (although I say you're never too old to start, so maybe she should re-apply :)  Mia Ferrari doesn't get along with the police chief either, whom she blames for her not being on the force to begin with.  And, she had an affair with her boss once a long long time ago in Venice so the "office dynamics", such as they are in a large ritzy hotel in Australia, are, um, a little, um, delicate sometimes.  I liked the heroine - a total wiseacre who's pushing fifty and is not afraid to take on a younger man.  Who says life ends at forty?!?!  It doesn't even get STARTED until fifty!!I've read a few of Ms. Massara's other books and I can say her storytelling is clearly evolving.  The writing is polished and crisp and the main character eminently likeable.  I LOVED her sidekick, a retired American cop who is forever being dragged along reluctantly into Mia's schemes.  For a first-time murder mystery, this one is a score.  And oh, if you're an Italian foodie (meaning you're into Italian food, not a foodie who's Italian) you will looooove the Italian food porn!  But most of all, I liked seeing a kick-ass, middle-aged woman as the heroine, someone who doesn't take any crap and who aspires to be more than she is after a nasty divorce.  I would like to see more fiction with these sorts of characters!