Pocket, $6.99, ISBN 0-671-02740-9
Historical Romantic Suspense, 2000 (Reissue)

A debut author whose book is a hardcover. Hmm, I can hear the knives and forks being pulled out from under the critics’ tables already. Me, I don’t buy hardcovers, they’re too expensive, so I am reading and reviewing this only after it is available in mass market paperback.

I’m almost afraid to read this book as a result. But hey, I thought, why not? Well, I can now safely say that this book isn’t that bad. It’s not good, but it’s not awful. But take that with a pinch of salt. I didn’t pay $18 for this (“only” $6.99), so I could afford to keep the scalpel and dentist drill safely tucked away while reading this book.

For me, the plot of a story determines whether it sinks or stays afloat. Here, we have surly, one-dimensional Ian Foscani, the Conte d’Aostro, and female doctor and buxom bimbo Bianca Salva thinking the other murdered courtesan Isabella Bellocchio. You see, they stumbled upon each other over poor Isabella’s body, with Bianca holding the murder weapon. The story is set in Renaissance Italy, by the way.

Sounds good so far. But then, guess what? For some silly reason Ian demands that they fake an engagement, all the while he believing her a murderer. It must be something in the Venetian water. And Bianca, whom I am convinced is the prototype for Barbie dolls everywhere, wants to perform an autopsy on the dead woman. Seems the only way she can get her hands on that corpse is via an engagement.

Only in books you don’t call the law when you stumble upon a dead body. Only in fiction la-la land do you pretend to marry under the most implausible circumstances. This book sinks a hundred feet under the plausibility quicksand and is never seen reemerging ever again. I find myself going “Huh?” almost right away – in Chapter Three actually – and it requires the strongest of will for me not to take up a red pen and start making notes at the sidelines.

Ian is a blockhead, a total nincompoop who isn’t a very hospitable, much less compelling hero. He alternates between casting aspersions at Bianca or lusting after her Barbie doll measurements. He doesn’t trust her, but has no qualms in playing patty cakes with her. Gee, that is so adolescent high school tomcat behavior.

Then there’s Bianca, dear Bianca, who wants to be a doctor but can’t. The book maintains it’s because of her sex, but I say it’s because of the fact that she’s empty upstairs. That ninny supposedly wants to find the murderer of Isabella, but she gets sidetracked – no, make that skidded off the mountain path and fell right down into a ravine and never seen again – whenever Ian waves his protruding banjo at her. Silly woman. If I’m her, no way will I get all chilly in my erogenous zones whenever that insulting, obnoxious boor even looks at me. What happened to pride? Oh, and dear Bianca is willing to do the wild thing by page 121 (or is it 131?) because she is consumed by intellectual curiosity about Procreation Mechanics 101. This from a woman who has friends among courtesans. Take it from me: if you’re consumed by burning curiosity about jolly fun stuff of the bedroom, please pick someone worthy for your desire to learn. Not a bad tempered, insulting, cold, and totally unpleasant swine whose only good (if superficial) trait is being handsome and gloriously blond.

Then there is this rather confusing style of writing, where there are many awkward and abrupt changes of point-of-view. There are paragraphs where up to three people are talking, all their conversations thrown into one confusing mess. Sometimes there are two men in the room, and the use of “he”, “him”, and “his” becomes totally bewildering. Whose him is getting him’ed? All I got from all this analysis was a headache.

But then again, these faults don’t hide the fact that Miss Jaffe is an author that, with tighter editing and proofreading, can probably go far. This is a first book, after all, and allowances have to be made. So what if historical details are a bit lacking? So what if the heroine’s a bimbo and the hero’s a Ken doll?

Hmm, maybe I didn’t quite put away my scalpel after all.