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	C.E. Japhe C.E. Japhe is an horror/mystery writer and avid reader, currently living in the panhandle of West Virginia. In addition to formerly serving as an editorial reviewer for FMAM, she is a member of the Horror Writers Association (HWA).

DETOUR
Richard Meese
Hats Off Books, $24.95, 513 pp.
ISBN: 1-4137-5163

Margaret Brady, CPA, lives a very mundane, structured existence. She knows exactly how much time it will take to make her bed, shower, and drive to work. She goes to work, takes work home, and watches movies while she works at night. One night, after an aborted date opportunity with the store clerk at Blockbuster as she's picking up "Dead Calm,' she is kidnapped. She is miraculously saved by someone claiming to be an NSA agent, and whisked off to Geneva. Margaret is swept up in a storybook spy drama, protected from terrorists by her savior, superspy Steve Solo.

DETOUR takes us for a detour from the beginning. Despite being kidnapped at gunpoint, being taken to a construction site, roughed up, thrown on the ground, nearly raped, and wetting her pants, Margaret is still gorgeous, seemingly not a hair out of place. Although we are told how grounded and cynical she is, almost without question she flies off with her "rescuer." Margaret's gullibility flies directly in the face of everything the author is trying to tell us about her.

In the meantime, when she goes missing, her best friend Danielle calls the police. The Orange County Police send their finest, Detective Marshall, who promptly has sex with Danielle on Margaret's bed while they're searching her apartment. Say, what???

This is the least of the problems with this 500+ page book. There are jarring lapses where a character inexplicably changes names then reverts. Not to mention the plot problems, way too numerous to go into here. Unfortunately, the author seems to feel the need to inject sex unnecessarily and inappropriately.

There are glimpses of wit here and there in Meese's dialogue. Meese is attempting to show Margaret's awakening from a boring existence with the help of her rescuer/kidnapper; if he were to develop this and make some adjustments, he might have a good book here, with some real psychological insight.

C.E. Japhe

FOR LOVE AND MONEY
Leslie Glass
Ballantine, $6.95, 304 pp.
ISBN: 0-345-44795-6

New York stockbroker Annie Custer's life is a mess--her traumatized husband hasn't worked since 9/11, one daughter hasn't gotten out of bed in months, the other is on drugs, her maid has quit, and she is trying to figure out the ambivalent feelings she has for her boss. To complicate matters, her best friend Carol asks her to do her a huge, illegal favor involving Carol's parents, stocks, and valuable bearer bonds.

Her friendship with Carol is already strained following a lawsuit involving both their husbands, resulting in a bitter feud. Then, Carol strains their friendship further by asking her to pick up millions worth of stocks and bonds from her miserly, unstable father and bed-ridden mother. Being her family's sole source of income, Annie needs the account, so she agrees. It becomes quickly evident, however, that there is more to the favor than meets the eye, and Carol's father may have his own agenda. Annie gets more than she bargained for when a substantial stack of bearer bonds goes missing, and she is blamed.

In the end, however, the intrigue involving the securities takes a back seat to Annie's personal trials and tribulations. Will she and her husband work things out, or will she give in to her attraction to her boss? Or both? Will her oldest daughter get out of bed and get a job? The interactions between Annie and the dysfunctional people in her life are engrossing.

The story is well told and fun for the most part, although the resolution of the case of the missing bonds is rather abrupt and leaves the reader feeling a little cheated. Fans of Leslie Glass and her prior novels will find this witty, funny character study enjoyable, and a hard-to-put-down read.

C.E. Japhe

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