Book Review: Bandit Queen Boogie

Reviewed By: Woodstock - RAM

Bandit Queen Boogie     Amazon US PB Amazon Canada PB
Sparkle Hayter
Class/Genre:   Fiction   Mystery   Romance   Humorous   Woman Main Character
Three Rivers Press, 2004, 290 pages

A typical rite of passage for young Americans leaving college is a backpacking trek through Europe. Blackie and Chloe have been friends throughout high school and now are spending a few months traipsing from one well know destination to another. On the beach one day they meet an older American man, with a suspicious light strip of skin where a wedding ring might have been worn. When they discover all their cash missing, they suspect him and devise a plan to recover their funds. After he issues the anticipated invitation to his hotel room, they slip the "date rape" drug intended for them into HIS drink, and make off with the contents of his wallet.

This sets the stage for a comic romp through France, featuring an elephant sculpture from the Indian sub continent, two Indian thugs searching for the sculpture, a missing British heiress, a group of Christian evangelists, a nudist colony, a journalist striving to jump start his career, and of course, Blackie and Chloe sampling a life of petty crime.

Hayter makes this entire panorama work, in a light, quick comical read.

Woodstock - RAM

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Woodstock - RAM