"I never want to leave this town. Cannes is a village on happy juice. LSD. It's the Wizard of Oz on shrooms."
I want to live in Cannes, California. It's definitely on my list of Fictional Places I'd Like to Live. I'd have a comfy chair and a big bowl of popcorn and I'd park myself on the sidewalk and just watch. It's crazy town in the most entertaining way possible.
I can't move to Cannes, but at least I have these books and I can visit this nutville and it's residents anytime I'd like.
In Love Game there's an ill wind blowing, and her name is Luanda. She's brought a special brand of crazy to Cannes and it's undoing all the good matches Gladys and her grandmother Zelda have made. Add to that a suitcase full of spider infested clothes, Gladys car keys going into a ravine, a group kidnapping and a murder and you have the makings of a very entertaining week in the best possible slapstick style.
I like Gladys, but I have to admit she's not always my favorite character in the books. I don't think I could be friends in Real Life with someone who has been known to be extremely flighty. But she's still a character you can get behind and cheer on. While each book has presented the entire cast in all it's zany glory, I would have to choose Ruth as my favorite from this book - she's got all the best lines. I should hope to be her when I'm in my 80's. She reminds me of the little old lady cartoons on the Hallmark cards - you know which one I mean? The skinny one that smokes, wears glasses, and has absolutely no filter between her brain and her mouth.
The romantic angle of the book is chaos of the best kind. I normally HATE HATE HATE love triangles, but what Gladie has going on here really doesn't qualify as a love triangle - more like it's raining men. (Hallelujah!) Holden is out of town and out of touch in this book, but we have a new player - Remington Cumberbatch. A detective working for Spencer Bolton, he's around often enough to keep Spencer from a sure thing and Gladys' hormones in overdrive. The chemistry is constant and intense between Gladys and both of these men, and her flirtations are fun without stretching the readers patience.
The kidnapping/murder was excellent - Ms. Sax can write a mystery. I didn't even know who to suspect until the end, when Luanda's denouement puts Gladys in the spotlight, leaving her to piece together the clues and come up with the answer. I'm not sure how realistic the deductions are, but they were fun nonetheless.
I'm hooked on this series and I hope Gladys has a long run full of fun, laugh-out-loud adventures. I'll be looking forward with eagerness for the next one.