In short, a great premise for comedy. Wealthy Dr. Owen Vannice, Kessel's naif scientist protagonist, has snatched a dinosaur from the Cretaceous period for study. He then gets stranded in Jerusalem in 40AD, where he falls prey to Genevieve Faison and her father, a pair of time travelling swindlers out to steal the dinosaur by pretending to steal Owen's heart. Kessel throws in not only the kitchen sink, but the fridge, dishwasher and electric can opener. The problem is that screwball comedy doesn't work on the page the way it does on the screen.
Films can get away with a flightiness of plot that drags novels down.
The plot here is a little too flimsy and haphazard to hold reader interest for close to three hundred pages. NICE is an entertaining enough read, but one suspects that the author is capable of a good bit more. Sturges fans will understand. Any Original Material Author All rights reserved.