You did it! We figured this one out! It is a truth universally acknowledged (by me for certain) that the Bitchery pretty much knows everything, and really, it's true. Scroll down to see the solution for this HaBO - and many thanks!
This HaBO comes from Anna, who is looking for a romance with what sounds like a very smart heroine:
Can you help me find this surprisingly IT savvy book featuring a female law enforcement officer?
I think this was the second romance novel that I ever read and it *might* have given me some unreasonable expectations of the genre.
I picked it up as a teenager at some point in the 90’s (but am not sure when it was published) and I remember it starting with the heroine (who is law enforcement of some kind…FBI, I think) on the run after an assignment gone wrong.
She runs into the hero in the rain, pulls a quick clothing switch and evades her pursuers by pulling the old “kissing a man I’ve never met”.
The hero turns out to be a computer programmer, there’s a plot which involves them going into a company undercover (with her pretending to be a disabled computer programmer and him pretending to be an FBI agent).
I also remember the heroine having a thoughtful conversation with another employee at the company, who had committed the twin sins of being both fat and a woman and had some cynical and accurate observations on how she was treated.
There’s also a villain who loves Lladro porcelain and uses a keystroke logger.
Is this familiar to anyone? It sold me on the romance genre as a whole and I would love to track it down again.
Thanks in advance.
You can never trust those villains who collect Lladro. Really – it’s a dead giveaway. Anyone recognize this book?
I don’t know what this is but as someone with a Llladro history you had me at “villain like Lladro”.
How long was the book? Was it a suspense or more of a romp?
It sounds slightly familiar.
If it was a longish suspense, maybe something by Suzanne Forster. I’m probably way off.
Hi Coco
Thanks for looking at this, I remember it being pretty short and punchy.
I think maybe closer to a suspense than a romp.
The 90’s were so long ago.
@Coco:
So, so true.
I feel older now than I did three minutes ago 😛
I need to stop reading these because I don’t know what the book is, but now I want to read it desperately.
On just how long ago the 90’s were:
…We didn’t own a computer until 1998 (perhaps even later) and no internet until at least 2000.
…I personally didn’t own a mobile phone until 2006 (and still don’t own a smartphone).
A singular book read at some point in the 90’s could have been written anytime before then, though with the IT and programming being pivotal likely not by much…
Anna, are you sure it was the 90’s? I mean I guess you’d be sure of when your teens happened but this book being “surprisingly IT savvy,” and “featuring a female law enforcement officer,” make me think later.
Elizabeth Bevarly did a trio, You’ve Got Male, Express Male, and Overnite Male, that was a bit of a romp with a bit of suspense/ spyfi. I enjoyed it. There was hacking involved, I think, and a lot of computery stuff and some mistaken/ stolen identity. (I am a hack but could not hack my way out of a sack.) Likely not it as it was 2005-2006 but if you aren’t firmly sure of the 90’s…
Risky Business by MJ Rodgers?
@ Julia…
If that ain’t it there has to be two of them.
And 1992! WOW.
Julia, that looks exactly right, thank you so much!
Coco, I was super lucky in that we got the internet around 1992ish(in the old usenet days even…I remember being astonished that the www existed).
I was just starting to get interested in progamming when I read the book and I think I was glomming on to any book with programmers.
@ Anna
The home computer was a luxury item when I was a child and just starting to see some play, and I do mean mostly play, in schools when I was in middle school and was an elective in high school that filled up fast. The schools didn’t make it a priority to teach all the kids and most of the parents just didn’t know they needed to demand their child be taught on them.
And too, I come from a long line of introverts. While we’ve figured out now that being able to connect without even saying hello and disconnect at will (and all anonymously if we like,) is the bee’s knees, we all fought against it real hard. Now that we’ve got this control over connection we’d fight like rabid dogs if you tried to take it away.
This is, in part why I’m fighting the smartphone. If I have it, I’ll need it. I don’t want to need it.
All that having been said, I’d love to have had the tech earlier in my own life as I believe I’d be better at using it now if I’d started when my brain was younger and not so rigid. I’d not be a programmer but maybe I’d know how to type!
So glad you found your book!
God, you guys make me feel old! I was a computer programmer from 1978 through the 80’s, when I quit to stay home with the kids. We had a home computer in the 80’s, but I didn’t use it, since I worked with them all day long (kind of like Coco’s attitude towards smartphones). When I started, people were impressed when I told them what I did. By the end of the 80’s – not so impressed anymore – just started talking about their PC’s.
By the way, I once worked with a woman who started programming in 1958!
Sounds like an interesting book, by the way.
I’m totally thinking of ditching my smartphone. I’ve never gotten into the expensive ones, and honestly it totally makes my adhd worse. Like right now in software training session at work…. it’s useful for a few things but such a pain in the butt most of the time
@ Julie
I just watched this the other day.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/61416/grace-hopper-queen-code
I know there’s been computers and programming for-ever but in my mind there’s a separation between these and the mainframes and the computer that’s sitting in front of me. I have two girlfriends who worked in programming during the 60’s/ 70’s and the one is still more tech savvy than I. She’s 79. I frequently get schooled by Miss Jenny.
@ Olivia
Being the introvert that I am, and I’m rather agoraphobic really, when I do spend time out with friends and see the addiction, the constant need to check, and the total reliance on these phones, it makes me uncomfortable. Perhaps there’s been too much sci-fi in my life but it seems like smartphones might be an easy in for our android overlords.
At the very least these ever present, multitasking machines seem to be spreading the ADHD. I’ve got a bad case without help, thank you very much.