Stuff to Spy For
A James
Lessor and Skip Moore Mystery
Don
Bruns
Oceanview Publishing (Hardcover)
ISBN-10: 1-933515-22-8 (1933515228)
ISBN-13: 978-1-933515-22-9 (9781933515229)
Publication Date: November 2009
List Price: $24.95
Synopsis (from the publisher): Best friends James Lessor and Skip Moore are still stuck in dead-end jobs, still living in their ratty apartment in Carol City, Florida, and still dreaming of hitting the big time. It seems those dreams are finally within reach when James lands a job to install a state-of-the-art security system for Synco Systems. There's a huge commission -- and plenty of strings -- attached. To collect on the cash, James will have to provide "additional services" by assuming the role of pretend boyfriend of Sarah Crumbly, an employee who's having an affair with Sandler Conroy, Synco's married president. When Sandler's wife offers James a tidy sum for the dirty details about what's going on at Synco, James and Skip resurrect their entrepreneurial dreams and go into the business of being spies. The spymobile -- their beloved, rattletrap of a boxtruck -- is on its last legs, and they'll have to spend a small fortune on spy equipment, but there's no business like spy business. In this spy game, James and Skip may be the ones who get played -- or worse.
Review:
Underachieving best friends James Lessor and Skip Moore land a job
installing a security system at a local government contractor but soon
discover the secrets they're protecting may be of a more personal --
and
dangerous -- nature in Stuff to Spy
For, the third mystery in this series by Don Bruns.
The referral on the sale and installation of the expensive equipment
(with its high commission for Skip) comes with a caveat: he must
pretend to be the boyfriend of his contact at the company ... who just
happens to be an old high school flame ... who just happens to be
dating the company's CEO ... who just happens to be married to the
owner's daughter. Emily, Skip's current girlfriend, isn't all that
thrilled with arrangement but goes along anyway. All seems to be
proceeding well when the CEO's wife contacts Skip and hires him to get
the dirt on her husband's "extracurricular" activities. Conveniently
ignoring the conflict of interest this represents, he sees a fat bonus,
but James sees an opportunity to jump into a new business: spying on
people, with all the cool gadgets that are required to do the job
right. The spying part comes easy to them; it's what they learn that
may cost them their lives.
The mysteries in this series are clearly influenced by the Hardy Boys
books. Though written for an older reader, they tend to remain true to
the overall concept of two eager, slightly bumbling, but always sincere
buddies out on an adventure. But where the Hardy Boys are typically
quick to spring into action once a mystery is presented to them, James
and Skip are positively sluggish in getting started here. Part of the
problem is the pacing of the story, which really doesn't pick up any
speed until page 118 when James declares, "We're officially spies", and
even then what follows is measured at best. The spy elements add a bit
of sparkle to the plot, but not enough to make the story shine.
Situations in which James and Skip find themselves that are clearly
intended to be humorous, including the whole "ex-girlfriend call girl
pretending to date Skip while dating her boss who's married to the
company owner's daughter" premise, tend to fall a bit flat, and at
times seem forced, not a natural consequence of anything that preceded
them.
Stuff to Spy For might
have been better had it taken a more Hardy Boys-style dramatic approach
to the narrative, rather than trying to artificially craft light,
comedic circumstances (a la Lucy and Ethel) for James and Skip to
perform in. In the end it's a bit disappointing, especially since the
previous books in the series adopted a straight-forward approach to the
amateur sleuthing activities of the two principal characters ... and
ended up with better results.
Special thanks to Oceanview Publishing for providing a copy of Stuff to Spy For for this review.
Review Copyright © 2009 — Hidden Staircase Mystery Books — All Rights Reserved
Have you read Stuff to Spy For? How would you rate it?
Mysteries in this series …
Stuff
To Die For
Oceanview Publishing (Hardcover), September 2007
ISBN-10: 1-933515-10-4 (1933515104)
ISBN-13: 978-1-933515-10-6 (9781933515106)
Stuff
Dreams Are Made Of
Oceanview Publishing (Hardcover), September 2008
ISBN-10: 1-933515-16-3 (1933515163)
ISBN-13: 978-1-933515-16-8 (9781933515168)
Stuff to Spy For
Oceanview Publishing (Hardcover), November 2009
ISBN-10: 1-933515-22-8 (1933515228)
ISBN-13: 978-1-933515-22-9 (9781933515229)
Omnimystery keywords for Stuff to Spy For ...
Location(s) referenced: Florida.
