The Desparate Game - a Guinevere Jones novel (Book 1)

The advertising for this series says, "If you like Moonlighting ... If Remington Steele turns you on,you'll love ... THE GUINEVERE JONES NOVELS."  Growing up in the '80s, I watched both of those shows and loved them.  Thus, it was pretty much a no-brainer that I was going to pick up these books.  Now, I honestly cannot recall where I first saw them - maybe it was on Amazon, or perhaps eBay.  All I do remember is that I loved the cover art and cover design, and when I read the description, I was immediately hooked.  The author, Jayne Castle, I was completely unfamiliar with; however, I have since learned that Castle is actually Jayne Ann Krentz, who has written a number of bestsellers under various pseudonyms, including Jayne Castle, Jayne Taylor, Stephanie James, Amanda Quick, and others.  This four-book series was originally published back in 1986, which explains the Moonlighting and Remington Steele references - clearly, she was cashing in on the success of those two shows and their format!

 

The Desperate Game is the first Guinevere Jones novel, introducing readers to the thirty-something business woman with coffee-brown hair that runs a pretty successful temp agency. Unfortunately for her (or fortunately, depending on your point-of-view), while temping herself as a cocktail waitress, she happens to meet Zachariah Justis, a "frog that never metamorphosed into a prince" (p. 7). She is determined to ignore his not-so playful passes until he says the magic word - "StarrTech" (p. 10).  And with that begins the hate/love relationship of Guinevere and Zac.  What starts as a matter of blackmail in order for Zac to get Guinevere to work for him turns into a heated and passionate one-night stand that leads to a deadly partnership to uncover the truth behind missing shipments of technology.  Both have secrets and both have attitudes, but in the end, they find they must put aside any feelings of distrust if they are going to stop not only a thief, but also a murderer!

 

Castle (Krentz) writes a wonderfully engaging murder mystery (even if the murder does not actually get discovered until nearly half-way through the book), and the banter between Guinevere and Zac reads so smooth and natural, it brought a smile to my face on more than one occasion.  I love Guinevere's quick wit and snarky remarks, and Zac's no-nonsense, do whatever it takes to get the job done attitude compliments her nicely.  The pair make a great team, and I could easily picture this as an '80s television hit.  And, as silly as it sounds, I like the fact that Castle did not make the two characters perfect specimens - neither are described as overly beautiful or handsome, and they both have their flaws.  It makes them considerably more real than most crime-solving duos (who, on television at least, are always portrayed as gorgeous and the ideal model-type women and men).

 

The mystery itself seems simple enough - Zac engages Guinevere to return to StarrTech where she had previously temped and try to uncover some clues as to who has been diverting shipments of expensive technology.  A number of shipments have gone missing, and no one seems to know how.  Guinevere has no desire to return to StarrTech (her previous dealings with the company were, let's just say, less than amicable), but she has no choice, as Zac knows something that could send her to jail.  So, she goes along with his plan.  She gets back in with some of the people she used to work alongside when she was there before, and learn that one of the computer programmers has not shown up for work in more than a week.  No one has heard from him, and a fellow programmer with whom he had been developing a video game is beginning to worry.  A quick trip to the missing programmer's house leads Guinevere to take a disk containing the game in development - a game that has been drastically changed, with changes that could potentially hold the key to the missing shipments!

 

While I was a bit underwhelmed with the opening chapters, feeling they moved a bit slow, I soon realized that the slow build-up made for a much better payoff at the end, as Guinevere finds herself not only getting deeper into the undercover work, but she also finds herself falling for her new "boss."  As with any couplings, the two go from hot to cold and back to hot again, as they learn to trust one another and gradually open up about their respective pasts.  The final confrontation with the thief/murderer in the company warehouse is fairly exciting - although the cover is misleading, as Guinevere does not carry a gun at any time in the story.  Also, I'm not really sure what the spider and the web in the background of the cover are all about, unless it is simply to imply the "web of lies" surrounding the investigation.  And all of the talk about computers and video games, I had to keep reminding myself that this was written in the mid-1980s, when home computers and computers in the everyday workplace were just starting to become a thing.  Reading this book was almost like stepping back in time.

 

I would say this was a solid read and a great introduction to the main characters.  We even get a couple of supporting cast members introduced that I hope will pop up in at least one or more of the other books.

 

RATING:   9 glasses of straight tequila out of 10 for a terrific tale of murder, corporate larceny, and technological intrigue that introduces a great new team of detectives!