I just finished Agnes and the Hitman by Jennifer Crusie and Bob Mayer. It is not entirely fair to compare these writers to Janet Evanovich. Janet’s books tend to be almost a light cozy. Sex and violence are minimally on the page or completely off screen. Janet’s stories are intriguing but not complicated. The characters shine and the point of view is first person female.
Agnes has sex and violence on the page in full view, nothing is glossed over. That isn’t to say it is graphic, because its not. Romance is definitely the sub-genre of the book. But if a reader had delicate sensibilities, they wouldn’t care for Agnes because of the sex and violence that is described. The point of view switches between the two main characters: Agnes and Shane. This adds an interesting twist to the story because Shane’s musings are so utterly male. The humor, like Janet’s, is very much there. It is not offensive or mean humor, just how silly people can be and what odd turns their minds, motives, and morals take. The book length feels a bit longer than novels by Janet but that could be because the story is so much more complicated and the characters’ history is complex. Currently the book is a single title where as Janet works in a series with her characters.
I would definitely recommend this book.
Craft ideas I took from this book:
- Single location for 95% of the book: I knew the house and grounds by the time the story was done so that it was just as much a part of the story as any character.
- Reduced Character count: Their first book introduced seven characters in the first scene. I can’t remember how many on the first page, maybe four. That’s a lot. In this, their second book together, the character count came down per page and per chapter, at least in the beginning of the book. Half-way through the book, all major characters had been introduced and were vital to the story in some way.
- Coincidence and loose ends: While coincidence didn’t play a major part of the plot, there was one area where it did and it wasn’t explained. Both Agnes and Shane went to boarding schools. Shane’s history is explained including the purpose of his stay at the boarding school. Agnes’ boarding school time has the exact same reason as Shane (both parents dead) however it is never explained but rather left as a loose end. The coincidence of the common experience looks important in the story but it is never developed and then only Shane’s backstory fills it in. It felt like something was dropped or forgotten, although I admit it is a very minor issue considering the strength of the overall story.