Product Description

The lead singer of "We've Got Blondie's Drumsticks and We're Going To Use Them" has a problem. He only wants one woman in the world, and that woman is Debbie Harry. Unfortunately, he works in a bank. His brother has a problem too. His wife has gone missing - on his wedding day.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1072404 in Books
• Published on: 2001-03-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 347 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
When the biggest event in a small town is a wedding, wouldn't it be helpful if you could find the bride? Richard (Dick) is about to embark on his second marriage in his hometown of Compton, Tasmania. The only problem is, his lovely wife-to-be, Sarah, has gone missing and the guests are melting in the heat. Harry, the biggest Debbie Harry fan in the world, is concerned for his brother Richard but is more concerned that his band "We've Got Blondie's Drumsticks and We're Gonna Use them" might not get to play. And Harry's band-mate Pippin is more interested in picking up one of the wedding guests than she is in playing in the band. Add Richard's best friend Tom and Richard's ex-wife Bronte to the mix and this colourful cocktail of characters is complete.

Tom, Dick and Debbie Harry tells the story of these six characters lives as they muddled through with a little "love and lust" in the Tasmanian bush. Jessica Adams was dubbed worthy of giving "Helen Fielding and Nick Hornby a damn good run for their money" by the Daily Telegraph for her first novel Single White E-mail and Tom, Dick and Debbie Harry is certainly a contender for the same accolade. --Neena Dutta

From the Back Cover
The lead singer of We've Got Blondie's Drumsticks and We're Going To Use Them has a problem. He only wants one woman in the world. And that woman is Debbie Harry. Unfortunately, he works in a bank.

His brother has a problem too. His wife has gone missing - on their wedding day.

Meanwhile, the best man is wondering whether it's okay to live with a woman old enough to be his mother.

By the end of the summer, one of these men will have fallen in love again - with the wrong woman.

Welcome to the world of Tom, Dick and Debbie Harry. Three men. Five women. One small town. Love and lust in all the wrong places. And a sexually dysfunctional Australian sheepdog.

About the Author
Jessica Adams
Jessica Adams is the astrologer for Vogue magazine in Australia, and B magazine in the UK and the author of Handbag Horoscopes and The New Astrology For Women. She lives between England and Australia, and her novels include Single White E-Mail, Tom, Dick and Debbie Harry and I'm A Believer. She is the co-editor of Girls' Night In, Girls' Night Out - Boys' Night In, and Big Night Out. These have raised over half a million pounds for War Child, the charity of which Jessica is also a trustee and patron.

Customer Reviews

Brilliant
I am so impressed with this book! It is fabulous. To be honest, I wasn't a huge fan of Jessica's first novel, and I picked this up with uncertainty, expecting a chick lit Bridget JOnes-rip-off. To my delight, it isn't like the other chick lit stuff at all - it is a quirky, interesting and unusual romantic comedy.

The characters are all very well-drawn indeed and the author takes time to delve into their consciousnesses while delivering a fast-paced plot at the same time. It is also unpredictable - normally in these sorts of novels you know from the start who will be with who, but the romantic ending comes as a surprise. The novel has the quality of a really good play - with interesting scenes and some fantastic dialogue - somehow Jessica manages to give subtle shades of meaning to quite ordinary words, bringing out underlying tensions and feelings between the characters.

All in all, I can't recommend a book more thoroughly. With 2 or 3 chick lit novels coming out every month now, I never know which one to buy (as much as I enjoy them, I can't get them all). I think if you're spoilt for choice, definitely pick this one - it is something special.

Read Helen Fielding or Nick Hornby. They're funny.
I picked this book up on a recommendation from a friend. I was initially doubtful; it seemed like another of those women's books in the emulating Helen Fielding. It wasn't. I read Bridget Jones and thoroughly enjoyed it, this book however seems flawed in several ways.

Because of the title, I expected the book to focus on Tom, Dick and an obsession with Debbie Harry. The book turned out to be an ensemble piece with no real focus on any main character. This made it difficult to tell a story well over the course of 340-odd pages. I also ended up disliking several of the characters, which is never really a good sign; the Best Man (Tom in the title of the book) and his willingness to sleep with Sarah (his best-friend's new wife) springs to mind. All of the male characters in particular seemed extraordinarily weak.

Other than minor points about the poor proof reading ("Mike it a treble" etc.), needless references which date the book and the anomalous time-jumps the book takes, the book was very easy to read and had an enjoyable, unexpected conclusion.

Perhaps it's just not a book for guys, but I didn't really find this book very engaging or humerous. It seems the title was written first, then the story around it developed.

Thoughtful, funny and strong on Debbie Harry.
There are so many irksome books in the market at the moment about impossibly thin women worrying about how they can get even thinner, in order to attract the impossibly good-looking single bloke at their impossibly fashionable office. This is nothing like that. Jessica Adams' characters are flawed and real, and are old enough to know something about themselves, which makes for a far more absorbing read. The situations they find themselves in are the stuff of real-life nightmares: after a whirlwind romance, Sarah has just moved out to Tasmania from London to marry her boyfriend Richard, but finds herself falling hopelessly in love with his best friend Tom. Tom is reaching the bitter end of his relationship with Annie, a sculptor 20 years his senior who dragged him out of his alcohol and gambling addictions, and yet discovers the binds of gratitude and loyalty are as demanding as his new passion for Sarah. Bronte, Richard's ex-wife, has started to see the spirit of her horse and is convinced she's going to die - but is it something in her past that is haunting her? There are no easy answers at the end of the novel, because life doesn't end on a drumroll of perfect happiness, but the three-dimensional characters are so well-drawn that anything less than an ambiguous real-life ending would feel like a cheat. More importantly, by the end, you feel as though some real development has taken place, and that you know some real people; since finishing, I really miss Harry, and his drumsticks. Highly recommended.