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That is where we left things with the last review and where we pick up. Carlotta’s father contacts her, she breaks her cell phone, and we discover that, apparently, she has a previously unknown twin out there in the world. Thanks to Carlotta’s love-hate relationship with her parents, she decides that rather than telling, oh, the cops about the call, she would be better off conferring with Peter. I cite this as an example of her general judgment skills. Carlotta, when given the choice, will almost always make the wrong decision.

In romantic comedy, this is often used to enhance humor. Trust me when I say the effect is quite the opposite here.

For example, a woman who spends her life pricing objects and studying designer labels like they’re geometry is going to have a frickin’ clue about the cost of a 60-inch flat panel television. She’s gonna know that it wasn’t cheap. And she’s gonna know that her brother is lying through his teeth when he says, “Surprise, I sold my motorcycle and bought you this massive television [which readers know will not survive the book] because I love you.”

Carlotta, of course, chooses to swallow her anger and, as is so often the case, Bond opts to end the chapter (very short chapters here – rather than scenes, we have chapters). Bad decision. When you’re barely making it, having a hard time paying your bills – to the point where you won’t even open the envelopes…which, if you did, you’d know that someone was charging a lot of stuff to your credit cards and using your cell phone, but I digress – you don’t let it ride. Carlotta indulges her brother far too much. I get that he’s scarred from the parental abandonment, but this type of behavior is what I believe we know to be co-dependent.

In other words, Carlotta as a character is weak. She swallows so much emotion it’s a wonder she doesn’t have a nasty ulcer. Bond has a bad habit of using slapstick humor when her own natural funny bone will suffice. Because it’s situational – whoo hoo, look who’s found under a rack of dresses by her boss, guess who’s hanging from the railing of a balcony, see who’s pretending to be dead to entrap her parents – Carlotta comes off as dumb, irresponsible, and, frankly, pathetic. Where’s her backbone? Her kick-ass attitude? Her “I’m a grown-up and I am in charge?” license?

Carlotta isn’t a waif, she’s a victim. And victims make lousy heroines.

[Irrelevant point: Carlotta is an autograph hound. It’s a weird quirk introduced for this character that makes no sense and seems to pop up at the strangest moments. I’d love it if Bond could somehow make this odd behavior work for her character. Back to the review.]

Her brother Wesley isn’t much better. He’s a whiny little boy pretending to be a man. But you can somewhat forgive him – the youth today are just built that way. Wesley is a supposed genius, but you’d never guess it from how he’s written. His life’s goal is to play in the World Series of Poker. Okay, it’s a goal. He is also trying to prove his father’s innocence by breaking into government computers.

So get on with it already. Do something. Anything. Stop pouting and getting in deeper with mobsters and loan sharks and use your brain. The Wesley character is a churner – lots of talk about action, but no actual forward movement. Unless you count sleeping with your father’s former lawyer. Icky, icky, icky.

On one level, I’d commend Bond for foisting upon us some very unlikable characters. I mean, I certainly do come down hard on romance authors who make their heroes and heroines overly perfect. But there’s flawed and then there’s flawed. I simply cannot – after three books, mind you – like these people.

Okay, I like Coop, the former coroner, but he gets so little time to be on page that it’s not enough to keep me going. And even he was churlish and namby-pamby in this book. I realize that the author is doing her best to stretch an ill-conceived love triangle across multiple novels, but it’s a losing battle. The only way this can be made better is if Carlotta falls in love with a previously unintroduced investment banker.

Because this book is called a “sexy mystery” (hello marketing!), one might suppose that the mystery – a rash of identity thefts plus one dead identity thief (the one who stole Carlotta’s life) – would take center stage. Nah, it’s just a side plot. Or you might suppose the sexy might be important. It’s not. What we get instead is a mish-mash of things. Bond doesn’t so much juggle the plot elements as she does dash around, trying to keep them from crashing to the floor.

Bond made her name in category romance and seems to having a hard time letting go of the current “rules” of the sub-genre. Most specifically, there is an unfortunate compulsion to keep the hero and heroine physically together as much as possible. In some books, this creates scenarios eerily close to stalking. When you add three potential heroes into the mix, there’s a whole lot of forcing them together going on. Or, if you will, all that joined-at-the-hip stuff leaves very little room for creativity and plot development.

Because Bond used the mystery as a replacement for super-glue instead of an actual plot element, I had absolutely no emotional investment in this crime. At some point, the entire plot veers away from the so-called mystery when the local DA sees the death of Carlotta’s “twin” as an opportunity to lure her parents out of hiding. This fulfills the “togetherness” mission – Detective Jack Terry, he of the bad ties, is forced to stay with Carlotta 24/7 – but does little else to move the story forward. Unless you count our newfound knowledge that Carlotta is a master of disguise.

Also, that the DA is a lying, two-faced scum bunny (didn’t need fifty or so pages to learn that, by the way). Bond, true to form, spends very little time exploring this, as a plot or emotional issue. She seems to abhor digging beneath the surface of these characters. I think she knows that she won’t like what she finds.

Because the plot serves as an afterthought for the author and characters, it served as an afterthought for me. I could, shall we say?, care less that someone out there was pretending to be Carlotta, making the actual conclusion of the mystery the kind of anti-climatic that leads to book throwing. And if I hadn’t been taught better (plus been sitting pool-side), that would have been the fate of this novel.

Mama raised me better than that.

As I noted way back at the beginning of this review, part of the title of this book is “Body Movers”. The implication, at least for me, is that the characters are body movers (dead bodies simply don’t cart themselves off under their own steam, you know). Cooper Craft, the former coroner (drinking problem forced him out), actually works as a body mover. Wesley works for Coop. Hannah, the worst Goth in the history of fiction, wants to work for Coop; she’s also a caterer. The mind does not want to put those two careers in the same thought. Carlotta, two books in, is thinking she wants to join the fun. And Bond? Well, according to her author’s note, has a four-book deal. You can fill in the rest.

Pretty much, the body moving thing serves as one of those convenient plot things. The author recalls that there’s a mystery afoot and needs a clue. What better way to propel characters into action than a dead person? Especially a dead person who is relevant to the story? Convenient, no?

I will say this: the mysteries offered up by Bond make Jayne Ann Krentz’s suspense seem downright intricate (you know I love me the Krentz, so this is not a slur on her skill). They lack intensity, purpose, and, mostly importantly, a connection to the story. It’s just a thing, and the mystery should never be just a thing.

As I’ve noted (yes, I keep referring back to the beginning of the review to make sure you’ve read every brilliant word), this is a series. It’s a series with an overarching plot: the guilt or innocence of Carlotta’s parents. In addition to calling, Daddy Wren shows up at Carlotta’s “funeral”. In disguise. All the cop brain-trust of Atlanta, plus the considerable neurons of the District Attorney’s office, and Atlanta’s most wanted criminal (and there’s something very sad about the amount of effort being placed on this crime, DA ego involved or no), and the dude slips in and out of the funeral parlor, right under their collective noses?

This rattles my faith in law enforcement, it does.

Daddy slips a note into the pocket of a jacket that Carlotta is wearing. Carlotta, who under normal circumstances, wouldn’t be caught dead in said jacket, conveniently discovers the note at the end of the book. You know: next, on “Body Movers”….

At the end of the story, we are pretty much where we were with the last book.

Then there’s the Elton John issue. Now, you have your opinions on Elton John and I have mine. But we can agree on one thing: Elton John concert tickets – even in Atlanta – are outrageously expensive. The kind of expensive that prohibits most average Americans from purchasing them. After all, given the choice between eating for a month and hearing Sir Elton, most people would choose food.

So it’s no surprise that every character in the novel ends up at an Elton John concert. Wesley gets his tickets from his probation officer who is giving them away like candy (I think there was some foreshadowing happening here, but because I’ve been disappointed before, I won’t get my hopes up). This whole scene leads up to the not-so-dramatic climax of the novel. It turns out that Carlotta’s supposed work buddy is behind the doppelganger business; how is a man supposed to live on a paltry Nieman Marcus salary, after all?

So here’s where we are: Bond seems unable to leave her category romance roots behind. She says she’s writing “sexy mysteries”, but these books are neither sexy nor mysterious. Three potential heroes, one of whom is clearly a creep, and you just know that she’s going to try to string out the general lack of chemistry between her characters as long as possible. None of this is good.

What I want is for Stephanie Bond to figure out what she does best and do it. Mystery, it appears, is not her forte. Perhaps she is more of a character-driven storyteller. It is not for me to say. But these Body Mover books must stop. After writing this, I went back and re-read what HK and I said about the first book -- I think you'll find that what bothered us then continues to bother me (and, while I would never speak for her, her) now.

You can find Stephanie Bond here. You can buy Body Movers: 2 Bodies for the Price of One here or here.