IT HAPPENED IN SOUTH BEACH

Author: Jennie Klassel ISBN: 0505526352 10/2005 CONTEMPORARY Publisher: DORCHESTER/Love Spell

If she's a beauteous, bodacious babe, gettin' down, gettin' it on, gettin' her man, she's definitely not good old Tilly Snapp. So what's the safe, sensible twenty-six-year-old Bostonian doing in Miami's ultra-hip, super-chic South Beach, where the rich and famous go to gape at the rich and famous, hip-hop rules, and the poodles wear Versace? She's on the trail of the fabled Pillow Box of Win Win Poo - the most valuable collection of antique erotic "accessories" in the world. And she's after the fiend who murdered her eccentric Aunt Ginger. And while Tilly might not know the difference between a velvet tickle pickle and a kosher dill, with the assistance of the unnervingly sexy yet maddeningly unhelpful Special Agent Will Maitland of Interpol, she's about to get a crash course in sex-ed on everything her jr. high health teacher forgot to mention.

RRAH's THOUGHTS AND PONDERINGS:

Take a safe, comfortable (okay, boring) heroine who embroils herself in the hunt for an antique sex toy along with the mystery of her aunt's death and Tilly Snapp, Sex Detective, is born.

And the fun begins.

IT HAPPENED IN SOUTH BEACH is hilarious. This story, richly textured with some wonderfully kooky secondary characters, a nifty little mystery and a terrific setting, is a real charmer.

And then there is Tilly. Refreshing, witty Tilly with her wacky antics, her irrelevant observations, her colorful insights is the perfect character to narrate this story. Oh, and lest I forget, she carries on conversations with dead people—her dead husband's description of his, uh, manly organ is a hoot!

Ms. Klassel's comic timing is dead on target. I found myself snorting, chuckling and laughing out loud through much of this story. The wild assortment of secondary characters, the hunt for the antique erotica and the circumstances surrounding Aunt Ginger's death combine to keep this story moving at lightning speed.

Now for my complaint. IT HAPPENED IN SOUTH BEACH is billed as a contemporary romance, but there really isn't much of a romance in this story. Interpol agent Will Maitland is appropriately sexy, but beyond his physical description, he is a shadowy character. Tilly and Will don't spend a lot of time together in this story (a fact I found frustrating at times) so I really didn't feel a connection between the pair. And that fact is a shame because some of the best scenes in IT HAPPENED IN SOUTH BEACH come from Tilly and Will's interaction.

Nevertheless, IT HAPPENED IN SOUTH BEACH is a lively, fun story brimming with offbeat characters and crazy scenarios. A story I wouldn't hesitate to recommend to anyone.

Debbie Jett