Rick Holman, Hollywood fixer to the stars is back at it in The Blonde Avalanche, this time investigating the death of Marlene Hurst at the request of her stage partner and one half of the formerly popular stage duet headlined by Matt Tyler. Tyler's motives seem genuine, however his manager, the stunningly beautiful Angie Strong isn't keen on employing Holman's services for reasons unbeknownst to anyone but her. Naturally, suspicion lands firmly on Strong, but not before Holman tries to land his hands on her firm curvaceous wares first.
"You're stupid, Holman, you know that," she said coldly. "You could've had my vibrant body and maybe I would've shown you a couple of tricks that even you hadn't seen before."
Holman, as surprising as it is to mention, is at his most viral in The Blonde Avalanche; bedding near any female with a pulse on his way to solving the murder and uncovering a blackmail scheme for good measure. Whilst these encounters of the r-rated kind do progress the story, you get a sense that Carter Brown was trying to see how much smut he could cram into 122 pages and still tell a story.
Spoiler alert - a lot!
The overly completed plot devices and simpleton characters, hallmarks of many Carter Brown mystery stories are prevalent in The Blonde Avalanche; these are the sort of books that don't take themselves too seriously and read more like a teen wet dream rather than literary crime fiction. Know what to expect going in and you'll have loads of cheesy fun.
I enjoyed The Blonde Avalanche and recommend it for readers with an interest in what I call 'popcorn pulp'. Check it out if you come across a copy hiding in the adult section of a used bookstore.
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