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I do not ever want to go on a tour guided by Emily Andrew. Nowhere. Nohow. It has little to do with the fact that she is invariably the youngest person on the tour, or that some member of her family is omnipresent (including, in this case, her transsexual ex-husband), or even that way too many people die on these tours. It's not even that she talks about the Mid-West like we/they have a lock on being on time, being sensible, doing the right thing. What I object to is the hotel burning down, with everyone's belongings (except for passports, credit cards, and cash) being lost in the blaze. And then Emily's lost luggage turns up, and her clothes somehow fit every other female on the tour. This is just not possible, or even probable. Not to mention that Emily's idea of clothes to take on a tour of Italy require a major suspension of belief in mid-Western fashion sense (such as it is) as well as a budget which would enable me, for instance, to actually take a first-class tour of Italy. Emily is in Italy for PASTA IMPERFECT, her Senior Travel Tour having been included in a package tour for wannabe romance writers. If one has read either of the two previous Maddy Hunter novels (ALPINE FOR YOU or TOP O' THE MOURNIN'), most of the members of the STT will be familiar. The members, in particular the famous authors, from the romance writers portion of the group are skewered as deftly as Sharyn McCrumb did sci-fi convention goers in BIMBOS OF THE DEATH SUN. I believe that by the end of PASTA IMPERFECT there are four dead bodies. Two of them happen to be judges for an impromptu contest; the winner gets his/her romance novel published by Hightower Books and a whopping advance. The losers get to whine a lot. Emily's mother, somehow, is the only remaining judge when it's time to pick a winner. Is this on purpose? Has a contestant been killing the judges in order to improve his/her odds? Emily spends a lot of time on her cell-phone, attempting to communicate with Etienne, her Swiss romance (met in Alpine, continued in Mournin'?) who just happens to be a policeman. Duncan, one of the Hightower entourage, keeps putting the moves on her, which Emily finds uncomfortable and reassuring, simultaneously. My take on PASTA IMPERFECT? If you can get past some of the more absurd moments and situations, this is fun. If terminally cutesy doesn't make your stomach turn, this is fun. It's not the most intricate plot you'll ever run into, nor the deepest characterizations out there. It's a great book for schlepping along to the beach, to an airport when you know you're going to have time on your hands, a book you can pick up and put down without losing track of where you are in the story. I'll read more of Maddy Hunter as I come across them, but I won't hunt them down or tap my feet impatiently until the next one comes out.
Reviewed by P. J. Coldren, July 2004
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