Emily S. (profiteroles) - reviewed on 10/10/2009 + 10 more book reviews

Though the content of this book is par for the course as far as suspense-driven thrillers go (protagonist navigates through a tangled web of deceit that is personally disturbing and life-threatening), what really makes this book interesting is its tone and its sense of place. Set in modern-day Los Angeles, the prose echos the gritty, no nonsense style of classic Hollywood film noir. The narration is entirely in first person--and the narrator, Eve Diamond, is tough and flawed, with as many deep recesses and secrets as the underworld villains she encounters. The dialogue is sometimes forced and the plot sometimes requires a more than willing suspension of belief, but the book is really at its best capturing the gritty hodge-podge of urbanity that is modern L.A. Perhaps if I lived there it would be different, but this book did much more to convince me that L.A. is an urban metropolis, with its own logic and unique demographics, than six weeks of working in the city did.

Cliff's Notes: For romantic suspense, I still prefer J.D. Robb's Eve Dallas and Roarke, but the film noir prose and sweeping cityscapes of L.A. and its environs made _The Jasmine Trade_ worthwhile nonetheless.

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