Reviewed By: Ruth Jordan - RAM
The Girl With The Golden Bouffant
Mabel Money
Class/Genre: Mystery
April 2004, Harper Entertainment 368 pages/$14.95
The Girl With The Golden Bouffant has a playful title and a glorious premise. Ms. Money has come up with an idea for a satire that is wonderfully unique. James Bond has sipped one martini too many and is in Sanitarium drying out. Her Majesty’s Secret Service doesn’t want it going around in spy circles that their top 00 agent is incapacitated and so… They recruit James twin sister Jane to impersonate him. With the use of latex she passes the mustard at James public appearances. So well in fact, that she is recruited by Miss Tuppenny for her new spy ring G.E.O.R.G.I.E. (Girls in Europe Organized to Right Grievances and Insure Equality). The time frame is 1966. The assignment we share with Jane is a spy convention in Las Vegas.
A brilliant concept, and I was laughing and intrigued for the first fifty pages. Unfortunately the concept seems to have sapped Ms. Money’s imagination. I entirely expected a farcical romp through Vegas with spies chasing spies and nobody quite getting to the end result. Instead the plot becomes klunky and the fun soon ends. An idea this good needed to be pampered a bit and allowed to sing. This does not happen. Still, I’ll look for future titles because this author may well get it all together next time out.
Ruth Jordan - RAM
Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Ruth Jordan - RAM
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