Lauren Henderson is best known for her funny, sexy crime novels starring Sam Jones. I'm a great fan of these, especially Freeze My Margarita. In "My Lurid Past" Henderson leaves Sam Jones aside and steps out from the crime genre in to mainstream literature. I picked this book up enthusiastically. How well would Henderson cope outside the supports and limitations of genre fiction?

Not very well.

My Lurid Past starts off well enough - no-one could ever accuse Henderson of being unable to write. It almost feels like a "Sam Jones novel without Sam Jones". There's plenty of Henderson's trademark sex, humour and fetishism, all done with her usual aplomb. Unfortunately it doesn't go anywhere.

The characters are interesting enough. The main character is Juliet Cooper, a food PR who's worried that casual sex is losing its appeal. Her friends include Mel the Dominatrix and unhappily married Gillian. Then there's Juliet's wastrel brother Chris and her latest client Liam who's a celebrity chef and a complete tosser. It's a great line up. Unfortunately other than a brief visit to a fetish club they simply don't do anything interesting! Most of the book is taken up with Juliet's agonising about her sex life.

Henderson's pure talent is enough to carry you along for a while, but by about half way through the enchantment is wearing off. Without a crime to provide a structure there's simply no story. It's just a slice of a very boring life. The book devolves in to banal chick lit of the most irritating and pointless kind.

My Lurid Past is ultimately very well written and stunningly dull.