From Publishers Weekly
Author Conrad Korzeniowski has suddenly died, and a woman named Cornelia but calling herself Miranda Smith has been hired to get hold of his unpublished (and possibly nonexistent) pornographic memoir. It's a change of pace for Cornelia, whose usual day job is killing people, because her night job, which is dancing in strip joints, can't support her avidity for important first editions. The third-person account of Cornelia's sleuthing alternates with Conrad's luxuriantly raw sadomasochistic tell-all. Jakubowski, owner of London's famous Murder One mystery bookshop, claims Mickey Spillane as a literary forebear, and it rings true. The sex in Spillane stopped at the bedroom door, but it was always clear that what went on wasn't fluffy. Cornelia's part of the book isn't much of a whodunit, and the dialogue positively clunks, as in this phone call with her boss, Ivan. " 'Hi.' 'Good vacation?' 'Yes, I feel quite relaxed now,' Cornelia said. 'Good. The Caribbean is a good destination this time of year.' " No matter: these chapters are just teasing interstices, designed to build up appetite for Conrad's hot, hard, wet, rough, redolent, ritualistic and occasionally meditative, even soulful, pages. Conrad's brief encounter with Sarah Jane, sought on the Internet for a hotel dalliance, offers a memorable portrait of the masochist's power over the sadist. For those so inclined, or wanting insight, it is a classic scene.
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From Booklist
Cornelia is a New York stripper who moonlights as a hit woman, but she's playing detective to track down the unpublished sexual memoir of a dead British novelist. Of course she is. What premise could be easier to accept with a straight face? Jakubowski, a former publisher and owner of London's Murder One bookstore, even gives Cornelia a craving for first editions as an excuse to take lucrative killing contracts. Okay, so it's a silly, self-indulgent premise, but readers willing to unplug their b.s. detectors will find an amiable literary mystery worth a few giggles and gulps of surprise. By interweaving chapters from the erotic memoir throughout the novel, Jakubowski gives himself a reason to include some of the steamiest, raunchiest sex scenes ever showcased in a mainstream mystery. In fact, the earthily explicit explorations will raise pulses much higher than the anemic puzzle. A marginal purchase--many folks will be turned off by the often-brutal bedroom games--but the novel is just engaging enough to spark further interest in Jakubowski.
Frank SennettCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
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