DUSTY DEXTER PI: HER FIRST CASE - Jan Richards

I think I read somewhere that DUSTY DEXTER PI - HER FIRST CASE started life as a newspaper serial, which if that is the case, makes it the second of this sort of book I've read coming out of Queensland this year. Although this isn't a series of short stories, it's the story of an entire investigation.

The blurb is going to give you a tiny little bit of a hint about the style of this book. It's light-hearted, chick-mystery, accidental, mildly clumsy, enthusiastic rather than necessarily highly skilled, female PI. With surgically enhanced boobs (you'll have to read the book to work all this out). So it's not exactly hard-boiled. It's in that territory somewhere between madcap, funny, soft-boiled, cosy, lunatic PI stuff that's getting the rounds of the book buying sites these days.

Needless to say, a style that I'm drawn to occasionally for reasons which remain completely baffling. It's daft, and it's fun, and whilst this isn't the absolute best of this style that I've read, it's a hell of a long way from the worst as well. There's some laugh out loud moments, there's some roll your eyes moments and there's some stuff that's slightly gag inducing. Cleverly though, as daft as Dusty can get, her boss Red doesn't do daft, and that's a nice balance. Her best friend doesn't do daring doing much either and that also works as a nice counter-balance.

I often wonder why it is, if you're a fan of this sort of crazy girl investigator stuff, local readers aren't supporting the local product a bit more. This has a great feeling of Queensland about it, I did laugh quite a bit in places, and all in all, it was a bit of light-hearted fun.