Ms. Simon Says

by Mary McBride

Overview

Opposites attract when an advice columnist gets involved with a rogue cop.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780446613743
Publisher:	Grand Central Publishing
Publication date:	03/01/2004
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.78(d)
Age Range:	13 Years

About the Author

Mary McBride is an extraordinary woman who was widowed and went on the raise five children by herself. She has been a gag writer for Joan Rivers and Phillis Diller, and is one of the busiest and funniest speakers in America, making about 200 appearances each year from coast-to-coast.

Editorial Reviews

In this frustrating effort from McBride (My Hero, etc.), the glossy world of Chicago advice columnist Shelby Simon collapses when she becomes the target of a letter bomber. Police lieutenant Mick Callahan drives her to her parents' mansion in the Michigan hinterlands, then stays to keep her safe. Amid rural pleasures, the two fall in love despite the fears Mick carries after being betrayed by both his mother and his late wife. Though others are killed, Shelby encounters little danger until the evening of the local Halloween costume gala, where the culprit makes a final attempt on her life. McBride's letter bomb premise will strike many readers as implausible; her story displays an obvious lack of awareness of how a multi-state letter bombing campaign would play out in the post-9/11 world. In addition, Shelby emerges as smug, controlling and, for an advice columnist, wildly unobservant; among other blunders, she actually draws the bomber-someone she has ample clues to distrust-directions to her hideaway. Although McBride's portrait of the rough-edged yet sensitive Mick is drawn with winning depth and the marital sparring between Shelby's parents is funny and insightful, these virtues fail to offset the story's slapdash plotting and unsympathetic heroine. (Mar.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly