cover image Bitch Factor

Bitch Factor

Chris Rogers. Bantam Books, $22.95 (304pp) ISBN 978-0-553-10659-6

In this entertaining thriller, Houston bounty hunter Dixie Flannigan, toughened up by 10 years as an ADA, agrees to do a favor for a softhearted friend and finds herself with a worldful of trouble. Her friend, Belle Richards, is a lawyer defending Parker Dann, accused of killing 11-year-old Betsy Keyes in a hit-and-run drunk-driving accident. Parker has skipped bail, and Belle, who believes her client may be innocent, wants Dixie to round him up before his impending trial. Just days before Christmas, Dixie sets off after Parker and quickly traces him to a hotel room in South Dakota. No sooner does she have him handcuffed in the back of her Mustang, however, than a blizzard hits, and Southern-bred Dixie, who's never needed a snow tire in her life, is forced to rely on Parker to get them both to safety. But it's not until Parker reveals that Betsy's sister has also died in a mysterious accident that Dixie begins to believe that he may be innocent and resolves to do some detective work before she delivers him back to Belle. Meanwhile, gourmet cook Parker brings out the sympathetic side of Dixie, who's become so used to stoking her bitchy reputation that she almost believes it herself. There are some glaring flaws here: both Dixie and Parker reveal their hearts of gold too quickly, and Rogers relies on too many scenes of little girls in peril to create suspense. Yet snappy dialogue and memorable characters--from Dixie's fearsome guard dog, Mud, to her young nephew obsessed with finding her a husband through the Internet--ultimately make the narrative pleasurable entertainment. (Feb.)