Sydney Teague is the head of a Charlotte, North Carolina advertising agency. On the recommendation of her brother, a patent attorney, Sydney acquires a client who would like her to promote a "safe" cigarette which he has named "Snake." Two weeks after Sydney has undertaken this job, her client , Seth Bolick, dies from nicotine poisoning. Initial inspection leads the police to suspect suicide, but Sydney is convinced he has been murdered. She feels she owes it to her client and herself to prove he didn't take his own life.

Sydney has known Seth for a scant two weeks, yet she purports to understand, in detail, how his mind works. If the reader can accept this premise, the story works well. The villains are not immediately obvious, but the clues are there for the more astute reader to uncover the mystery.

The characters didn't work quite as well. After only two weeks Sidney is supposed to know and understand Seth; yet, her children, whom presumably she has known all their lives, she doesn't really understand at all. Is she a perceptive individual who relates well to others or not? The rest of the characters, including her policeman boyfriend, seem totally one dimensional . The only thing the reader learns about Tom is that he is dedicated to his work and tennis. Yet, in some situations he appears to know Sydney better than she knows herself.

Occasionally, the author uses quite complicated sentence structure to say something simple. For instance, "I attended many a boring lunch on this particular balcony, one memorable one having yielded via napkin the design of a brick patio that graces my backyard today." Translated: "The lunch was boring, but the setting interesting. I copied the design for my backyard patio."

The story itself was an interesting one, and the outcome logical and believable. Issues are resolved, but the results for some of the characters probably will cause them difficulty in the future.

--Andy Plonka