Bad Kitty by Michelle Jaffe

This chic lit novel is filled with chatter about designer clothes, shoes, makeup, bags, faux designer perfume. It has a lot of trendy conversation such as that is so American Express (don't leave home without it). Actually this chatter constitutes most of the story. The bottom of the page conversations among the characters take up a big part of the book too. Those conversations seem very real, you can almost see the characters hanging around talking. Folks who like this story call it cute. Teens who enjoy chic lit may enjoy this too. There is a bit of a mystery here too.

Jasmine is on vacation at a resort in Las Vegas. Her cousin and a friend are there too. The cousin is very into style, makeup and so on. Jas who is not, endures a lot of taunting from her cousin as well as from one of a trio of friends who come in later. You can almost see Jas roll her eyes when these girls are giving her a hard time. She really prefers forensic investigations to cool clothes and makeup. Adults are largely absent except as bad and good guys in the mystery.

Jas catchs a cat that is on the loose. It turns out to belong to the son of a famous movie star, Fiona who is also staying there. The boy, Fred thanks Jas but also says a lot of other things very quickly before being dragged away by an angry man. It looks like there is a mystery worth being investigated.

As Jas digs around she discovers that the boy possibly witnessed a murder that his father had been charged with. The father is on the loose. Perhaps he is trying to find Fiona and Fred and murder them as well? She crosses paths with Jack who seems somehow to be involved in the mystery as well as Ivan who turns out to be the angry man. Twice she is nearly killed by a mysterious person who drives a purple fake fur lined car and wears a fake beard. She calls in her trio of friends to help her unravel the mystery and unravel it they do but not before they, Fiona's husband and several others are almost killed on a boat in the middle of Lake Mead.

This silly story might be fun for some - not for me. I like things a bit more serious.
JDW 7/11/07