The Librarian and the Spy

A spy novel collides awkwardly with a romance in this insipid debut. Quinn Ellington is an ordinary librarian with an overstoked imagination, thanks to her spy-novel-loving grandfather. She’s beside herself when an actual British spy who calls himself James (Anderson, not Bond) waltzes into her library looking for research assistance. He sweeps her off her feet, throws thousands of dollars at the library to secure her exclusive assistance, and shoots her with a tranquilizer dart and kidnaps her at the first sign of trouble. James is clearly the worst secret agent ever, but fortunately Quinn can hold her own in a fight, shoot like a Marine, and decode cryptic clues at the drop of a hat. The absurd plot might be forgivable if the writing were stronger, but the tedious prose makes this story utterly unappealing. [em]Agent: Rena Rossner, Deborah Harris Agency. (May) [/em]