SOFIE METROPOLIS

Tori Carrington

Forge

ISBN: 0-765-31240-9

June 2005

Mystery

Sofie Metropolis is a young Greek-American woman who is working as a private investigator in her uncle’s detective agency. She’s had a run of bad luck, with a fiancé who she caught having sex with her maid of honor on the day of the wedding. Then, there’s her engagement ring, which ended up in the garbage disposal. No longer employed as a waitress in her father’s Greek restaurant in Astoria, Queens, Sofie is intent on making it as a private investigator. She has mace, a gun she knows how to shoot (but keeps locked in her glove box), a vintage Ford Mustang, and an apartment building with interesting tenants. Sofie is set to go!

This book is peppered with very interesting, culturally colorful characters. These include Sofie’s collection of relatives, including parents, grandparents, and siblings, “pimply Pino”, the kid from her childhood who has become a neighborhood cop, and her mother’s elderly neighbors. Her former fiancé, his family, and her tenants all form the rich and delightful backdrop that is Sofie’s world.

Most important and most intriguing in this collection is Jake Porter, described as an “Australian man of mystery” who likes to tinker “under the hood” of Sofie’s mustang. Sofie would like him to tinker with more than her car, for sure!

This is a very different book from the ones previously authored by the husband/wife team that makes up Tori Carrington. What has remained consistent is their attention to detail and their ability to take a plot and move it in fascinating directions. Shot through and through with a very good mystery involving an auto mechanic, the FBI, and gambling debts, this story takes readers down the road of Sofie’s hit and miss life as she tries to solve the mystery. 

Sofie is a delight, a thoroughly Greek-American, who seems to always come out on top even in the most dire of circumstances. This book reminded me of the early Stephanie Plum stories, with its snappy dialogue, its rich cultural descriptors, and laugh out loud hilarious scenes. 

This hard cover story is sure to be a strongly popular read for fans of Tori Carrington. I am hoping that this is not the first book about Sofie; I, for one, would like to read more about this delightful character and after all, Jake is still out there, handsome, tantalizing, and mysterious.

 

Reviewed by Jeri Neal

Rating:  

 

For your convenience click below on one of the icons if you would like to order a book.