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Lil Ritchie #1
Switching the Odds
Hired to find the son of James Cooper, a wealthy businessman who believes his son is headed in her direction, Lil Ritchie discovers that Jesse Cooper is on the run because he has witnessed a murder
194 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1992
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May 1, 2026Finding missing persons is PI Lil Ritchie’s specialty, so when a wealthy businessman hires her to find his missing 16-year-old son, Lil expects to find the jobt right up her alley. But when she finds that the boy has witnessed a murder that may have involved his father, her loyalty is torn between her client and the law.
The idea for the story is a good one; it has some good guys and some very bad ones. Lil’s investigative technique is brazen but solid. Trouble is, the book is very disjointed. Although she lives in Maine, Lil is hired by someone in Virginia, then travels to Texas, and back to a second city in Virginia. And everywhere she goes she has fond memories of the times she spent there earlier in her life. In fact, her peregrinations read like a travelogue—what is the flora like, where can you hear good music, what place sells the best food? The author needed to focus more on the main course, not the side dishes. Much is served up that we do not want; much is omitted that we need.
I like the fact that Lil was once in a rock band. I don’t even mind that she takes every opportunity to drop the names of her friends who are still in the business—and who are real persons outside the novel. But she does not spend enough time telling us why she quit—in fact, what she does give us sounds like a very brief and unsatisfying synopsis of a previous novel—possibly one she abandoned. Her relationship with one of her band members is also kept short and unsatisfying. The bandmate’s name was Ron, but Lil’s actual relationship to him is unknown. Was he a lover, for instance? Her brother? Her musical mentor?
Her identity as a lesbian would be even more suspect without a titillating few sentences where she derides herself for looking longingly at her client’s wife. I tend to believe that the original draft of the novel described passionate night with same, but was cut out by the prurient editor of her mainstream publisher. More’s the pity. I think it would have been interesting as hell because the wife has the makings of an intriguing and complex character. And much of Switching the Odds is not. The fact that there seems to be no real sense of the lesbian experience or lifestyle in the story does not help my overall redoing experience.
This is another book—like Down the Rabbit Hole, et. al, whose title seems to have nothing to do with the storyline. Even though the climactic ending is unbelievable, the reader still sees it coming miles away. It is another one of those endings that make you read faster and then wish you hadn’t bothered. Sometimes I get the idea that authors get their endings from Ouija boards. Or that they should.
As befits the resources of a traditional publisher, the writing is very professional, even polished. But as far as anything else? Meh. Give this one somewhat less than 3 stars—a 2.4 maybe—and go on to something else, hopefully something better. There is a second book in this series, but I suspect I will give it a miss.
I read the first St. Martins paperback printing of this novel.
Note: This review is included in my book The Art of the Lesbian Mystery Novel, along with information on over 1250 other lesbian mysteries by over 400 authors.
The idea for the story is a good one; it has some good guys and some very bad ones. Lil’s investigative technique is brazen but solid. Trouble is, the book is very disjointed. Although she lives in Maine, Lil is hired by someone in Virginia, then travels to Texas, and back to a second city in Virginia. And everywhere she goes she has fond memories of the times she spent there earlier in her life. In fact, her peregrinations read like a travelogue—what is the flora like, where can you hear good music, what place sells the best food? The author needed to focus more on the main course, not the side dishes. Much is served up that we do not want; much is omitted that we need.
I like the fact that Lil was once in a rock band. I don’t even mind that she takes every opportunity to drop the names of her friends who are still in the business—and who are real persons outside the novel. But she does not spend enough time telling us why she quit—in fact, what she does give us sounds like a very brief and unsatisfying synopsis of a previous novel—possibly one she abandoned. Her relationship with one of her band members is also kept short and unsatisfying. The bandmate’s name was Ron, but Lil’s actual relationship to him is unknown. Was he a lover, for instance? Her brother? Her musical mentor?
Her identity as a lesbian would be even more suspect without a titillating few sentences where she derides herself for looking longingly at her client’s wife. I tend to believe that the original draft of the novel described passionate night with same, but was cut out by the prurient editor of her mainstream publisher. More’s the pity. I think it would have been interesting as hell because the wife has the makings of an intriguing and complex character. And much of Switching the Odds is not. The fact that there seems to be no real sense of the lesbian experience or lifestyle in the story does not help my overall redoing experience.
This is another book—like Down the Rabbit Hole, et. al, whose title seems to have nothing to do with the storyline. Even though the climactic ending is unbelievable, the reader still sees it coming miles away. It is another one of those endings that make you read faster and then wish you hadn’t bothered. Sometimes I get the idea that authors get their endings from Ouija boards. Or that they should.
As befits the resources of a traditional publisher, the writing is very professional, even polished. But as far as anything else? Meh. Give this one somewhat less than 3 stars—a 2.4 maybe—and go on to something else, hopefully something better. There is a second book in this series, but I suspect I will give it a miss.
I read the first St. Martins paperback printing of this novel.
Note: This review is included in my book The Art of the Lesbian Mystery Novel, along with information on over 1250 other lesbian mysteries by over 400 authors.
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