Alexa Barnaby is a complex gal. After being dumped by her boyfriend, she winds up back with him and actually working for him as a Nascar spotter, someone who calls the shots from the audience as he or she sees things that can't be seen from the enclosed space inside a racecar. But it turns out that racing is like every other sport, with those willing to do anything to win.

So it turns out that there's been some fixing of the races and someone gets killed in the process. Now it's Barnaby (Alexa's nickname) and Hooker (Sam Hooker) who are running from the killers and the cops, since it would look to the cops as Barney and Hooker were the killers.

What are they to do with a huge hauler that contains the dead body? Hooker is determined to find out precisely who did the killing and why? But for sure that truck and Barny's slobbering St. Bernard aren't exactly helping provide obscurity while the search continues.

The nature of the race against discovery by the killers and cops parallels the dramatic whirl of the couple's romance and plenty of techno-talk about how racing could be revolutionized by the discovery that caused this murder in the first place.

The pages and plot just fly by. While not as complex as some of her previous mysteries, Janet Evanovich continues to spin a great story that will keep your adrenaline pumping for more than a few hours!

Very cool!

Reviewed by Viviane Crystal on January 12, 2007

e-mail to: literarymuse@hotmail.com