Veronica Mars Goes Literary - Sort of - For "The Thousand-Dollar Tan Line"

The Thousand-Dollar Tan Line - Rob Thomas and Jennifer Graham

Unless you've been hiding under a rock, you know that Veronica Mars lives, thanks to a Kickstarter campaign to fund Kristen Bell’s return as a slightly older version of the sassy high schooler whose hobby is being a private eye. The diminutive blonde made it back to Neptune, California, for the movie – and stayed for the book. According to the cover blurb, The Thousand-Dollar Tan Line is “the first book in a thrilling new mystery series”!

Kristen Bell at San Diego Comicon, by Gage Skidmore

Your reviewer begs to differ: first in a series, yes; mystery, maybe; thrilling, decidedly an overstatement. Read on…

It’s March, and hordes of spring-breaking college students have descended on seaside Neptune, filling the motel rooms, jamming the bars and leaving the village streets littered with dead soldiers and pools of vomit. You know the drill… When one party girl disappears, however, national attention is focused on the annual three weeks of hedonism. Everyone in Neptune knows their elected sheriff is a corrupt buffoon, so the local Chamber of Commerce quietly turn to Mars Investigations – and right now, that’s Veronica.