Book Review: False Profits by Patricia Smiley

Stars: 3 out of 5
Pros: Setting, fun characters

Cons: Plot too convoluted

The Bottom Line:

Loved LA setting

Character was great as well

Plot a bit too much

The Book Profits from the Setting, but the Plot Puts it on Shaky Ground

Tucker Sinclair thinks she's on the fast track to making partner at Aames & Associates, a Los Angeles based business consulting firm. She just has one last interview with her boss before the announcement.

That interview doesn't go anything like she expects, however. Instead of reviewing her performance at the firm, Gordon announces that she and the company are being sued for some work she had done for Dr. Milton Polk. Dr. Polk had come in wanting Tucker to write what he told her to write and was less than pleased with her honest business evaluation. Now some investors in his medical company are saying they were defrauded and are suing to recover their money.

Tucker thinks she doesn't have anything to worry about until she discovers the original report for Dr. Polk is missing. When he turns up dead, she really starts to panic. Can see find the documents and save her career while dodging a killer?

I am a sucker for books set in Los Angeles, and this one proved to be fun. I just get a kick out of seeing the names of places I have been. This book puts Tucker all over Los Angeles, and you can tell the author lives here since the descriptions of daily life are amusingly accurate.

As a mystery, the book fell a little flat. The plot was a too convoluted for its own good. The author tries to add a related sub-plot, but it just confuses the story. Tucker hits too many dead ends. While she does figure things out on her own, the ending was more rushed than it needed to be.

Tucker was fun to spend time with, although I felt she was very naive, especially when it came to her ex-husband. She is determined and resourceful, which goes a long way toward redeeming her. The side kicks are wonderful, from co-workers to her actress mother and the mother's dog. A couple of them seem on the stereotypical side, but they have the potential to be fully developed characters as the series progresses.

Something struck me as weird about the writing. Twice that I caught, the author switched to present tense when describing someone. I never did figure out why this happened. Both times were near the beginning of the book, so either I stopped noticing or the author stopped doing it.

Honestly, my complaints feel like rookie mistakes. I certainly wouldn't mind spending more time with Tucker and her friends, and I do plan to read the second in the series. I just hope things have smoothed out from False Profits.