Book Review: Fast Women – Jennifer Crusie

Author: Jennifer Crusie
Book Name: Fast Women
Release Date: May 1, 2001
Series: *
Order: *
Genre: Romance/Mystery/Humor
Overall SPA: 3.5 Stars

Blurb: When a down-on-her-luck divorcée meets a determined-to-dominate detective, they find out that falling in love can be murder. . . .

Nell Dysart’s in trouble. Weighed down by an inexplicable divorce and a loss of appetite for everything, Nell is sleepwalking through life until her best friend finagles a job for her with a shabby little detective agency that has lots of potential and a boss who looks easy to manage.

Gabe McKenna isn’t doing too well, either. His detective agency is wasting time on a blackmail case, his partner has decided he hates watching cheating spouses for money, and his ex-wife has just dumped him . . . again. The only thing that’s going his way is that his new secretary looks efficient, boring, and biddable.

But looks can be deceiving, and soon Nell and Gabe are squaring off over embezzlement, business cards, vandalism, dognapping, blackmail, Chinese food, unprofessional sex, and really ugly office furniture, all of which turn out to be the least of their problems. Because soon, there are murders. And shortly after that, Nell and Gabe start falling in love. . . .

Main SPA Evaluation Areas:

Characters: 3/5 Stars
Believability: 3.5/5 Stars
Personal Opinion: 3.5/5 Stars

I picked this one up based on a recommendation for something on the funny side of things (thank you nananoyez!). The first 1/3 or so of this absolutely did it’s job with that and was exactly what I was looking for. Nell’s breakdown was just absolutely epic and I loved every second of it.

After that point, things start to level out and you get less of that humor and a bit more serious as the story begins to focus more on the relationships and the background mystery. I wasn’t a huge fan of how Nell and Gabe treated each other for the bulk of the story, so the romance part of this fell a little flat for me. There is a whole lot of toxic going on there and with every relationship in this book, but since this is more than just a romance, I was able to look past that enough to still enjoy the rest of the story.

The mystery part was decent if a little over the top. I’m not certain if I missed pieces or there just weren’t any hidden indications for the reader to be able to figure it out along the way, but the end and wrap up was a bit of a surprise.

The time frame of this story is around the early 2000s, so just a heads up to anyone that hasn’t read this that there are a few points with some dated references that tripped me up a few times because for some reason I expected this to be set in the current decade. It didn’t impact how I felt about the story, it just threw me a bit.

In all, the humor threaded throughout this story is what makes the book in my opinion. Since that was exactly what I was looking for, this hit the spot.