Jennifer Cruise & Bob Mover, Agnes and the Hitman

Agnes and the Hitman

Jennifer Cruise & Bob Mover

St. Martin's, August 2007, $24.95, 384 pp.

ISBN: 9780312363048

Agnes Crandall is comfortable ensconced in her new home which she and her fianc e bought from her friend Brenda when a male teen-ager with a gun comes barreling in wanting her dog Rhet. She hits him on the head with a frying pan. He is knocked through a door hidden by wall paper and falls to the basement and breaks his neck. Its clearly self-defense but Agnes has knocked out other men who hurt her with a skilled even though none pressed charges.

Shane (like in the western hero - one name only) is sent to Agnes's hometown to kill a hit man who was hired to kill somebody at the wedding Agnes is catering at her home for the daughter whose mother is her best friend. Shane's uncle and Agnes's friend knows something about the hidden room that hides a bunker that supposedly contains five million dollars from a robbery is locked behind the stainless steel locked door of the bunker. Shane and Agnes are instantly attracted to one another as they deal with a homicidal Brenda who wants her house back, an ex-fianc who is trying to drive Agnes out of her home, a missing mobster, a monster that doesn't want the money, the bride and groom and an assassination attempt that has to be stopped.

Jennifer Crusie and Bob Mayer make an excellent writing team because only they could write a jocular tale about a killer for hire. Readers will enjoy Agnes' antics although they probably should not although Shane as a hit man falling in love steals the show. Together he and Agnes make a perfect team in this amusing graveyard action filled plot loaded with shocking surprises that the audience never sees coming.

Harriet Klausner