Product Description

Another sexy, laugh-out-loud novel from the bestselling author of Welcome to Temptation Nell Dysart is living a too small life in a too small apartment. Her marriage is finished, her career is in limbo, and she feels she has the sex appeal of a skeletal giraffe. But things might be about to change, for Nell has landed a job at a down-and-out detective agency with huge potential for redecoration and a boss who looks easy to manage. A quick spot of dachshund napping, blackmail and embezzlement later and Nell can scarcely believe her life was ever dull. But when somebody starts killing people and unprofessional sex becomes a sticky situation, she starts to wonder just how many more thrills one woman's life can withstand...

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #129330 in Books
• Published on: 2002-02-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 220 pages

Review
'Scorchio' - B magazine 'A superbly funny women-behaving-badly book' - OK! 'Life in small-town America is captured with devilish humour' - Elle 'Feel-good romp full of jokes, sex, excellent advice and a cracking plot' - Hello!

Nell Dysart, newly divorced, underweight and desperate for a change of scene, applies for a job at a local detective agency. Gabe McKenna is a stressed-out, messed-up detective whose astrology-dependent wife has decided that they are no longer destined to be together. Love, slow to develop, finally explodes in a riot of passion and sexual athletics amidst a climate of revenge, blackmail, murder and pottery. Crusie's fourth novel is a fast-paced, hugely entertaining crime story. It begins as a fairly conventional romantic novel (skinny female victim with no self-confidence struggling to find her way in the world again meets hunky detective who is bitter about love and life). Then it appears that someone is blackmailing one of Gabe McKenna's clients and he is hired to find out whom it is. As the investigation proceeds and love blossoms, the novel transcends its romantic limitations and takes on a more colourful and inventive form. Nell and Gabe's relationship comes to life against a backdrop of unhappy marriages and dysfunctional villains. Throw in some missing diamonds, a couple of frozen bodies and a neurotic dog and you have a comic, feelgood story with lashings of good sex. Indeed, the thrills lie more in the bedroom antics of its two main characters than in the details of the crimes. Crusie's sex scenes are funny and inventive and drive the 'will they won't they get it together/stay together' plot structure to a pleasurable end. Crusie's comic touch consistently works well in heightening the dramatic scenes and her dialogue is incisive and well paced. Great fun. (Kirkus UK)

Synopsis
Another sexy, laugh-out-loud novel from the bestselling author of Welcome to Temptation Nell Dysart is living a too small life in a too small apartment. Her marriage is finished, her career is in limbo, and she feels she has the sex appeal of a skeletal giraffe. But things might be about to change, for Nell has landed a job at a down-and-out detective agency with huge potential for redecoration and a boss who looks easy to manage. A quick spot of dachshund napping, blackmail and embezzlement later and Nell can scarcely believe her life was ever dull. But when somebody starts killing people and unprofessional sex becomes a sticky situation, she starts to wonder just how many more thrills one woman's life can withstand...

About the Author
Jennifer Crusie is the author of Tell Me Lies, Crazy for You and Welcome to Temptation (all available from Pan Books) as well as the award-winning author of nine romances. She teaches writing and literature at Ohio State University.

Customer Reviews

Fast Women
Even as I write this review I am still on the fence about `FAST WOMEN'. On one hand I did really enjoy the book but on the other hand `FAST WOMEN' wasn't exactly a romance nor was it exactly a mystery and not the best of either genre. But ultimately I decided to give the book four stars, which is probably more like three and a half which according to my personal ratings system (see more about me) puts `FAST WOMEN' at slightly above average.
`FAST WOMEN' is about a fairly newly divorced woman, Nell Dysart, who finds herself having to start over completely as with her marriage so went her career. So Nell is forced to accept a position (gotten for her by her ex-brother-in-law) as a badly needed office manager for the McKenna Detective Agency. Nell soon finds herself thrown in the center of a plot to blackmail the owners of the prestigious O&D law firm that just happens to be owned by the very same ex-brother-in-law that got her, her job who also happens to be her best friend Suze's husband, also beeing blackmailed is the father, & the O in O&D, of her other best friend Margie! But after people start turning up dead Nell and her bosses Gabe and Riley McKenna begin to suspect a cover up of something much deeper.

While all of this is taking place Nell and Gabe, who first bump heads over everything from office furniture and business cards to a case about and emotionally abused dog by the name of SugarPie, begin to find themselves inexplicably attracted to one another. Forging a relationship, however, proves to be very difficult for Nell and Gabe with the case and their ex's (oh and did I mention that their kids have also started dating one another??) making it all the more difficult. But it is very interesting to find out how and if these two can get it together.

fast women
A Brilliant book. It has eveything to keep you gripped from cover to cover. It's got thrill, suspence, murder and even a little bit of romance. A must have for any serious chick lit fan. A good one for snuggling up in front of the fire, with the lights low, on a cold winters night. With it's twists and turns - you may think you have it solved but this has a totally unpredictable ending. I strongly recommend this to all fans of Jennifer Crusie and new comers alike. UNPUT DOWNABLE.

Fast Women, Good Friends
There'll probably be wails of disagreement about this - but this book is better than Welcome to Temptation. Yes, I agree that Gabe doesn't quite match up to Phin in the hero stakes (who could) but the interaction between Nell and her two sisters in law and best friends is so brilliantly portrayed that this book would be a must-read even if Gabe was a total frost on the hero front (which he most emphatically isn't).

This is a fun book, a quick read, frequently amusing, nicely written. The plot gets silly at times, some of the men get tiresome at times, but the women, originally three sisters in law, though two are no longer with their husbands - recovering Nell, sex-pot Suze and Margie with the obsession with china, are always entertaining. They are radically different from one another but still best friends, always there for support - or to assist in a bit of dognapping. Great stuff - I think I'd be prepared to trade in a hero for friends like these.