The Thousand-Dollar Tan Line
2014 • 338 pages
Ratings37
Average rating3.9
15
Ratings37
Average rating3.9
From Rob Thomas, the creator of groundbreaking television series and movie Veronica Mars, comes the first book in a thrilling new mystery series.
Ten years after graduating from high school in Neptune, California, Veronica Mars is back in the land of sun, sand, crime, and corruption. She's traded in her law degree for her old private investigating license, struggling to keep Mars Investigations afloat on the scant cash earned by catching cheating spouses until she can score her first big case.
Now it's spring break, and college students descend on Neptune, transforming the beaches and boardwalks into a frenzied, week-long rave. When a girl disappears from a party, Veronica is called in to investigate. But this is not a simple missing person's case. The house the girl vanished from belongs to a man with serious criminal ties, and soon Veronica is plunged into a dangerous underworld of drugs and organized crime. And when a major break in the investigation has a shocking connection to Veronica's past, the case hits closer to home than she ever imagined
Featured Series
2 primary booksVeronica Mars is a 2-book series with 2 primary works first released in 2014 with contributions by Rob Thomas and Jennifer Graham.
Reviews with the most likes.
I love Veronica Mars more than probably any other TV show in the history of TV. It's certainly the only show I ever donated to the kickstarter of. The Thousand-Dollar Tan Line reads exactly like a Veronica Mars episode – the pacing's the same, the visuals are the same, the mandatory cameos of the season regulars are the same – to the point that I could imagine the commercial breaks. And it's fun. It has Rob Thomas' characteristic wit and depending on how fast you read you might, like me, find that it's in fact less of a time commitment than watching an episode.
Downsides? Maybe I just don't have Veronica momentum any more. This just didn't really stick with me. It didn't have the context that a VM episode did, so it mostly felt like a filler one-off episode. I want wry class commentary, anti-hero feminism and friendly camaraderie. Oh, Veronica, we used to be friends, a long time ago, but I have yet to see a high school show that makes the transition to post-high school and retains its je ne sais quoi.
Perfectly average mystery novel. Not bad at all, but not anything that I'm likely to remember in a month or two.
Fun, well-constructed mystery novel, especially enjoyable if you like the character and the show. Everything is here, characterization, dialogue, tension, story. It's just as satisfying as any episode of the original series ever was.
The only thing that keeps me from giving it five stars is, it doesn't go beyond the show. It doesn't offer you much that you don't get from the series, other than that she's in her adult years now.
Probably more like a 3.5 star book. But for a car ride north with my wife, this was exactly what I was looking for. Note, if you are not already a fan of Veronica Mars, this book is probably not for you, but if you are, then it's a really nice Veronica Mars story.
