The Misadventures Of Super Librarian

This is my last week of work before the holiday - the boyfriend and I are boarding a plane for Michigan on Saturday. We always like to spend Thanksgiving with his family and Christmas with mine - and this year I get to finally meet my new nephew, who is now almost 5 months old.



I thought I'd talk about reading today, and the disappointing mystery I finally forced myself to finish on Saturday - A Dose Of Murder by Lori Avocato. I always feel like a heel when I pan a debut, but this book is a perfect example of my least favorite type of read. That is, it would be a very good read if not for the annoying main character(s). Too-stupid-to-live doesn't begin to cover it.



The heroine decides that she's sick of being a nurse, so she quits her job. Now there's nothing terribly stupid about this (on the surface anyway) but let's factor a few things in:

1. She's up to her eyeballs in debt because she co-signed on a loan for a former friend
2. It takes a two year degree to become an registered nurse and the heroine has her master's degree. I mean, don't you think she would have figured out long ago that the profession wasn't for her.
3. She owes her fabulous gay roommate rent money.
4. She has absolutely no other form of employment to fall back on.
   
   

But never fear, because the fabulous gay roomie hooks her up with a new job - that of insurance fraud investigator. Her job is to follow around a nurse, and former school mate, and get proof that the woman didn't really hurt her back on the job. Of course the heroine is totally inept at her new job culminating in her not reading the directions on her new video camera and only getting shots of the villains butt and feet. This humilating experience is played out in front of her new coworkers, so the heroine runs into the staff bathroom and cries her eyes out.



Since she's inept, she soon runs into the mysterious "Jagger" who is also working indirectly on the same case. The difference being he's actually good at his job, and he has bigger fish to fry. But Jagger is also lacking in the brains department since he decides it's a good idea for the heroine to go "under cover" at the doctor's office where the villains work. The heroine bungles around, discovers a dead body, and ultimately walks right into the villains' clutches when she accidently leaves her super-secret camera behind on a doctor's desk.



I'm losing brain cells just typing about this ding-bat.



I knew this was going to be a rough read when in the beginning chapters the heroine lets the reader know that she's merely stringing the good-looking doctor she's sort of dating along because he buys her fancy dinners and she can get laid. Call me old fashioned - but why doesn't she learn to cook and buy a vibrator?



Heck, she could probably have better sex with the vibrator. ::cymbal crashing here::



Now for the positives - the author knows how to write and tell a story. It's too bad the whole thing gets dragged through the muck by an idiot heroine. It's also too bad I read and reviewed it. I hatehatehatehate idiot characters. I'm not expecting rocket scientists - but when someone is supposed to be in their mid-30s and acts about 16 - well it tends to kill my congenial nature.



But the good news is that I've started a new book, and so far it is quite choice. Midnight Rain by Holly Lisle - an author who has written a lot of fantasty and is now branching out to paranormal/romantic/suspense. So far the story is gripping and the one love scene was smokin' hot. More later, I promise.