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Building on the characters in her novel Full House, Janet Evanovich joins with Charlotte Hughes for Full Tilt.
Max Holt (who was just a teenager in Full House) is now a wealthy businessman who frequently appears in big-city gossip columns. One day, he arrives in Beaumont, South Carolina in his top-of-the-line, NASA-designed car, complete with a talking computer named Muffin. His main objective is to help his brother-in-law, Frankie (once a professional wrestler), in his campaign for mayor. The city has become a corrupt mess, and Frankie needs Max’s help to figure out where the taxpayers’ money has gone.
While Max is in Beaumont, he also plans to visit his latest investment—the local paper. The owner, Jamie Swift, is his sister’s best friend, and Deedee begged Max to help keep the paper from bankruptcy. Little does Jamie realize that the calm, predictable life she lives as the owner of the paper and the future wife of the town’s most stable and predictable guy is about to turn upside-down. She soon finds herself questioning her relationship with her fiancé as she dodges the bullets of someone who obviously doesn’t want Max and Frankie to uncover the town’s corruption.
Full Tilt isn’t really a romance novel. There’s tension between Max and Jamie—but not really enough to make it interesting. It’s more of a (rather predictable) mystery, focusing on the threatening letters Frankie’s receiving and the mysterious hit men who show up in town. But when it’s all over, there are way too many holes in the story—and way too many questions left unanswered.
Like Full House, Full Tilt doesn’t really have the fun, quirky characters that readers have come to expect from Evanovich. And the story itself is nothing special. It’ll do for a quick, fluffy poolside read, but don’t expect anything spectacular out of this one.
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