Reviewed By Liz

ISBN 0-06-084555-4

I wanted to like this book. I really did. I like the premise – a girl from an old Texas family who cancels her debut and turns her back on the upper crust to live the life of an artist. Solving mysteries and finding love with an average guy while thwarting her socialite mother’s plans for her sounds fun doesn’t it? Unfortunately, the writing style of the author kills Night of the Living Deb.

This book is about debutante dropout Andy Kendricks and her boyfriend Brian Malone. They each go out with Brian’s co-workers (one of whom is getting married soon) for bachelorette/bachelor party fun and Brian doesn’t come home the next day. Instead, the body of a murdered stripper is found in his car. A frantic Andy is desperate to find Brian, who is much too dependable to kill strippers and must be in trouble. Shortly thereafter, Andy receives a strange call from Brian and a ransom note demanding money from her for Brian’s release.

And that is all I can tell you. Why? Because that is most of the book. This book has almost no plot. Instead, McBride has packed 300+ pages with Andy’s internal dialog. We read her mental reaction to everything – every line of dialog, every action, every outfit her mother wears – from one-liners to paragraphs and even pages of this contemplation. This technique fleshes out the character, but it does practically nothing to advance the skeletal plot. Instead, it quadruples the length of every conversation and scene and leaves Andy no time to do anything. There are only a dozen or so named characters in this book because Andy is too busy talking to herself to introduce anyone else. And if you only have three suspects…

You get the picture.

Favorite character? Stephen Howard, who helped when needed. Did I guess it? Yes. Will I read another? Depends on whether or not this author uses this internal dialog style in all her books.

Mystery Book Reviews by Liz at http://reviewedbyliz.com ©2007

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