The Pact

I've got nothing today. I'm recovering from a menstrual migraine (TMI?), and I'm still reeling from the one-two punch of ATNM and American Idol last night. It was a night of shocks all around. First, Tyra booted off two contestants on ANTM, and then she went off on one of the contestants. It was a true Tyra Tirade as she went off on Tiffany for not taking the competition seriously enough.

Then my Nadia gets booted off American Idol for the sole reason that she was true to herself, and her talent, and didn't try sufficiently enough to mold herself to what the audience wanted to see or hear.

So, she was booted off. I feel particularly guilty because I didn't vote for the whole two hours of voting. Pushing that re-dial button repeatedly takes alot of effort and concentration. Now, I feel as if I let Nadia down, if I'd kept voting, maybe she would have gotten that one vote more than Bo Bice and she'd still be on the show.

I'm at a loss as to why Scott and Anthony are still in the competition. Scott has no charisma, personality and minimal talent. Anthony is adorable but too young.

Anyway, I thought I would review a book I read over the weekend, called The Pact by Jennifer Sturman, a new chick-lit mystery series that RDI just published this past December.

Rachel Benjamin is the maid of honor at her friend Emma's wedding. Rachel, Emma, and their group of friends from college have gathered at Emma's family estate in the Adirondacks for the wedding when Emma's fiance turns up dead in the swimming pool.

No one is too upset that the fiance is dead including the bride. It turns out that back in college the five friends made a pact to rescue each other from bad relationships by any means necessary. Has someone taken the pact too far?

I really wanted to like this book. I adore chick-lit and I adore mysteries, so together they should fit like peanut butter and jelly. Unfortunately, The Pact, doesn't cut the mustard to use another food metaphor.

The biggest problem is that the author spends far too much time telling us what a creep the fiance was, and hardly any time showing us. She had the perfect opportunity in the first chapter at the rehearsal dinner to show us examples of his nasty attitude, but instead we get one comment and a smirk.

Another problem is the lack of suspects. You just know that none of the friends is going to be the killer. Which leaves the parents, the best man, and another friend who is in love with Emma. The best man's motives are unclear, although he's used as a red herring.

Jennifer Sturman's writing style is not bad, and it was a quick and easy read, but as a mystery it's not satisfying at all. You pretty much can figure out who did it from the first page. Plus, although I gather it's a slight homage to Agatha Christie, she even gets the names of one of Christie's detectives wrong.

It's Tuppence and Tommy Beresford, not Terrence. No true Agatha Christie fan would get that wrong.

A solid C+ for The Pact. (And avoid whatever Oxygen movie they make out of it. It's sure to be a clunker)