Thursday, January 21, 2010

Review: The Missing Ink


The Missing Ink by Karen E. Olson
3.5 stars

Reasons for reading: I wanted to read a book set in Vegas on our trip there

Synopsis: "Brett Kavanaugh is a tattoo artist and owner of an elite tattoo parlor in Las Vegas. When a girl makes an appointment for a tattoo of the name of her fiancé embedded in a heart, Brett takes the job but the girl never shows. The next thing Brett knows, the police are looking for her client, and the name she wanted on the tattoo isn't her fiancé's..."

First line: "I've made grown men cry."

My thoughts: I like Brett as a protagonist much better than I did Annie Seymour in Olson's Sacred Cows. She's still got some edge, but she's more likeable. The tattoo shop setting was very cool, too.

It was really neat to read this book while visiting Vegas over Christmas. One of my favourite lines compared the length of traffic lights on the Strip to James Cameron's Titanic - something we found to be true whether we were walking, in a cab, or driving. And her descriptions of Vegas, such as where things are are accurate, too - for example, while I was in the Venetian, I could imagine her shop, The Painted Lady, in the Grand Canal Shops. And there's other great cheesy Vegas stuff, like all-Elvis karaoke!

The mystery is a pretty good one, lots of twists and turns and bodies turning up. I'm looking forward to the next book in the series.

2 comments:

Stephanie said...

I've read a couple reviews of this book. All have been rather mediocre. I like the idea.

Vegas is such a fun place!! Have fun on your trip.

tinylittlelibrarian said...

I'd say it's a bit above mediocre, but it definitely falls solidly into the very overpopulated "special theme" mystery market (food, librarians, knitting, cats, now tattoos!). But the tattoo element and Vegas setting made it cool enough to rise above it a bit, I thought.