that she was the proverbial ten and a half. She was more than beautiful. She was lean and athletic with thick auburn hair plaited into a long French braid, and a laugh that made you want to laugh, too. We liked the same movies, Memento, The Royal Tenenbaums, Casablanca. We pretty much laughed at the same jokes. Since I'd met her I'd been unable to think about anything else.

Sympathy appeared in Tess's eyes. "Sorry about the fantasy, Ned, but we'll have to take that chance. You're crushing my arm."

She pushed me, and I rolled onto my back. The sleek cotton sheets in her fancy hotel suite were tousled and wet. My jeans, her leopard-print sarong, and a black bikini bottom were somewhere on the floor. Only half anis a likeable character and I felt a lot of empathy for him and what he goes through in this story. Unfortunately, Ned doesn&rsquo;t seem capable of making smart choices. Not when he falls in love, not when he agrees to help his cousin with a burglary, not when he goes on the run, not when he kidnaps an FBI agent, and not when he nearly gets himself killed on more than one occasion.

I was very disappointed with the FBI agent, Ellie. She came across as a little flaky at times, though she could be quite tenacious at times. Her area of expertise is stolen and forged artwork but she jumps into a murder investigation with both feet, despite repeated admonitions from her supervisor to stay out of