Paperback Writer
In this fresh contribution to the CBA market, Bly, the prolific, Christy Award-winning author of series westerns, pens an amusing parody of the proverbial dime-store paperback novel. Paul James Watson is a hack novelist who has just wrapped up the Diamond Dandy Disaster, the 55th book in his Distracted Detective series. Exhausted by his demanding publishing schedule and bored with a life "lived on cruise control," Watson longs to be like his fictional protagonist, the buff detective Toby McKinna, through whom he has lived vicariously in his novels. Watson discovers he's no longer able to separate reality from fiction when Toby appears to him as a real person, and their hilarious dialogues about Toby's fictional exploits provide the best moments in the book. Indeed, the reader is never sure if what is presented on the pages is reality or Watson's imaginary plotting of how the next "scene" of his life will unfold. When Watson gets tangled up in a cabal involving a serial killer, the question dogs him: is it real? Or is it fiction? Like the pulp fiction it parodies, the story is plagued by contrived coincidences, too many descriptive adjectives and interminable passages of dialogue. There is a cheesy reference to one of Bly's own westerns, and the ending is anticlimactic. But forget the writing problems (which may well be intentional genre parody)-this book is a funny, enjoyable romp for CBA fiction readers.Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.