By page one I knew this was going to be a disaster. First of all, staring me in the face was my vote for the worst cover of the Millennium (two half-clothed ugly people with a mannequin leg tossed on the heroine’s skirt to add a little sex appeal). I know cover art is not the author’s fault, still, if the cover was that bad, I was not certain the words inside were going to be much better.

Next problem was the heroine’s “name”: L.V. Foster (or LV, depending on whether the editor caught it or not). Immediately after that loomed one of the true biggies: a kid as a central character to a romance novel. Katie is a 5-year-old orphan who cannot pronounce her r’s. On the plus side, I could thank God her name was Katie and not Webecca. I got weally, weally tired, weally weally quick of this blatant ploy for sympathy for a kid who shouldn’t have been in the plot in the first place.

The hero of the story is Brian Reed (can you see it coming?), whom this beloved child refers to as Mr. Weed. The adorable-ness of this leaves me at a loss. Then, because Katie apparently has problems with the letters L and V as well, she calls the heroine Alfie. When Mr. Weed began calling her Alfie, too, I just about hit the cupboard for a good, stiff drink.

The plot, such as it is, involves a feisty (read: insufferable) female reporter who has been assigned by The Denver Empire newspaper to cover a breaking story in Glitter Creek, about a 4-hour stagecoach ride from Denver. Two miners in Glitter Creek have apparently been killed by a ghostly Indian. LV figures getting the story could just make her career. Yah, like, film at eleven. Brian Weed, er, Reed, is also hot on the trail of this ghost for different reasons, and Brian, LV, and Katie all meet up on the stage ride to Glitter Creek. Katie is going to live with her aunt, her late-mother’s identical twin sister (since we never meet Katie’s mother, and Katie, upon seeing her aunt for the first time does not blurt out, “Mommy, you’re not dead!” I’m not certain why they were identical). But Katie’s auntie has taken a turn down the wrong side of the twacks somewhere along the line, so Katie has no place to go. Of all people, Mr. Weed “adopts” Katie until he can find a suitable place for her. By the end of Chapter 3, she’s calling Mr. Weed “Daddy” and he allows it. He’s known this kid for five hours, and he lets her call him Daddy? What ever happened to “beat it kid, ya bother me”?

While our heroine takes off to look at the dead bodies of the miners, Daddy Weed books a woom in the hotel for him and his foundling. Yikes. Well, at least the child ends up sleeping in Alfie’s woom, er, LV’s room. Well, things proceed as Alfie and Brian try to solve the mystery, such as it is. The solution is so obvious, you won’t need your Official Sherlock Holmes Investigation Kit to have this one nailed by Chapter 3.

Remember the old TV Westerns: Gunsmoke, Cheyenne, Bonanza? Remember the fake, clippy-cloppy horsy noises and the tinny dance-hall music? Remember the dialogue? “Howdy, pard.” “Git outta here, Buck, or I’ll fill yer belly with lead.” Well, that’s what Chasing Alfie reads like. There’s no authenticity, no flavor, no character-development, but lots of fake-Western stuff.

I hate to give (especially) a new author a bad review, but I cannot recommend this book. There was nothing in it to interest me except a vague curiosity of what L.V. stood for (not worth the wait, trust me). And, since nobody ever chases Alfie, I have no idea where the title came from. Chasing Alfie is sadly, not at all a good wead.