Rage in the Page: again, I could totally do this...

Friday, August 11, 2006

Title: The Givenchy Code
Author: Julie Kenner

This is my kind of book – the protagonist is a giant dork who loves fashion. How can I not love this? The tagline below the title is even “Cryptography is the new black.”

Melanie is a grad student studying cryptology and taking on odd jobs to make ends meet (that is, to pay for her shoes). She hooks up with an ex, and wakes up the next morning to discover that he’s been killed while she slept in the bathtub because he was snoring so loud he kept her awake (just stay with me here). It turns out that a multi-player game she played a few years ago has been transferred to real life by the psychotic creator, and someone who was playing an assassin online is now trying to kill her in real life. The assassin killed her ex so that she knew he was serious, and in order to stay alive, she has to decipher clues and reach the target. To help her, she has a protector – an ex-marine who didn’t take the message seriously the last time he was told to protect one of the players in real life (she died), so he’s hard-core about keeping her alive. I'm just waiting for a similar plot to show up on CNN from one of those crazy renaissance role-playing things...

They travel all over Manhattan solving the clues and evading the potential killer. And hooking up in various hotels. (Duh. Just because I read one book without sex doesn’t mean I suddenly developed taste.) It didn’t end with the definite promise of happy ever after, though it’s pretty much assumed (come on, I’m totally not giving anything away by saying that).

But seriously, I really liked this one. Both characters have brains, and they use them! Plus, if you’ve been in Manhattan, it’s neat to learn random factoids about places you’ve been that they used to decipher the clues.

Highly recommended fluff.

Labels: romantic "suspense", trashy romance