THE LITTLE WHITE CAR

Fed up with her boyfriend, a brainy experimental musician, Veronique, a young Parisian, and her best friend, Estelle, take off on a tipsy bender of sex, death, hostile road driving, rock music, homing pigeons, and sinister international incidents, awakening the next day to find all of Europe looking for Veronique's little white Fiat Uno. 25,000 first printing.

How's this for a night out? You drink yourself silly, dump your experimental-music– loving stoner boyfriend, get in your parent's car and promptly kill a princess with it. But don't worry, you're beautiful and French: everything will work out just fine. Such is the lesson in this frothy, muzzy, comic caper by de Rhodes, a putative child prodigy ("She started writing features for fashion magazines at the age of twelve....") but actually the pseudonym of Dan Rhodes, author of the much-ballyhooed Timoleon Vieta Come Home. After waking with a hangover and the terrible knowledge that she caused Princess Diana's car crash, Veronique realizes that something must be done. So she goes to see her friend Estelle, a gorgeous, pansexual heartbreaker with a fondness for obscure Welsh poetry, confesses and gets drunk. But she can do better than that! Soon a scheme emerges, which involves the gradual disassembly of the car (which the police are looking for) into bits small enough to dump in public trash cans. But where to get the money for a new car? Stealing and selling the ex's stereo didn't net nearly enough—should Veronique get paid for having her toe amputated and sewn back on by a med student? Trials and tribulations abound, but these beauties will triumph in a novel that's as fun and as fast as a little white Porsche.
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Cherie, ou est mon automobile? During the sultry Parisian summer of 1997, a soused Veronique storms out on her pseudointellectual wimpster boyfriend and drives off in her white Fiat with her devoted Saint Bernard, Cesar. She awakes the next morning with a world-class hangover, no memory of her homecoming, and a massive dent in her car. It all makes sense when Veronique turns on the news and learns of Princess Diana's tragic death in a car crash the night before. Now all of France looks for a white Fiat that fled the scene. Panicked, Veronique calls her recently rehabbed best friend, Estelle. The girls decide to demolish the car and scatter it around Paris. Interruptions from a suspicious coworker, a romantic yet surly mechanic, and the televised funeral cause Veronique to schedule toe removal surgery for Estelle and Estelle to declare that Elton John will forever be denied entrance to Wales once she is queen. This female buddy novel is camera-ready, and each cinematic situation seems more absurd than the last. A fun, breezy read. Kaite Mediatore
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