I didn’t think I’d like Reinventing Romeo. The story of the rich spoiled playboy being guarded by a female FBI agent has often been done before. But Alex Romero and Kate Ellison surprised me by not acting like cliched characters. If it hadn’t been for the terrible sterotyping of the blue collar supporting characters, this would have been even better.

Reinventing Romeo is the tale of a rich, powerful businessman man – Alex Romero – who is also the Sexiest Man In The World and a star of the tabloids. Alex has to drop out of sight until he can testify against some nasty criminals who have hired a hit man to kill him. So how do the feds propose to protect Alex? They pair him up with FBI agent Kate Ellison and send them to a blue collar neighborhood in Cleveland where they will pose as a newly married couple, the Tomashevkys, sort of a Brad Pitt turns into Drew Carey scenario.

Alex’s disguise consists of a pair of glasses and a really bad haircut full of cowlicks. This may seem like not enough protection, but who would think of looking for an international playboy in a lower-middle class neighborhood in Cleveland? Alex is in culture shock when he and Kate arrive at their safe house. The house is small and dingy – there’s even a rusted out car up on blocks in the yard. The clothes they have to wear have Alex practically in tears. I doubt that Alex ever knew that polyester existed; now he has a wardrobe full of it. He even has to wash it at a laundromat! And, for a man used to eating in the trendiest of boits, sampling new foods with a variety of wines – he’s had to say goodbye to seared salmon and a light Chilean wine and hello to bratwurst and beer.

If Alex had been a total snob, it would have been very distasteful to see him hobnobbing with the lower-class locals while looking down at them, but Lane presents him as mostly bemused by it all. Under the polished exterior, Alex is a good and down to earth man and it comes through in the story. Reinventing Romeo also goes againt the cliches that we almost expect. Unlike some books of this type, where we wait for the heroine to do something stupid, Alex is the one who does a dumb thing and brings the bad guys to their hiding place.

Kate is a thoroughly professional agent. Is she attracted to Alex? Yes indeed. Does she lose all her brains and professional smarts in the force of his devatating charm? No, she remains in control and profesional and thank goodness for that. There is sexual tension between them for most of the book, but it is kept to a low simmer, and only boils over once. This makes for a fairly tepid book if you are looking for love scenes, but worked in terms of story and character.

Where character does suffer in this book is with the secondaries, and, in particular, Alex and Kate’s neighbors, Earl and Marge. Granted, this is a blue collar neighborhood, but was it necessary to have them exhibit all the stereotypes? We have characters with tacky clothes, tacky tattoos, tacky taste in food – complete with wine in a screwtop bottle – beer bellies, and bleached blonde Contrast like this can make for good comedy, but was it really necessary to have characters whose idea of a good time was to watch wrestling matches or play Bingo?

Despite this flaw, Reinventing Romeo is an enjoyable read. Alex and Kate were likable characters and the mystery subplot was engaging. If you like romantic comedy with a light touch of mystery, you’ll enjoy Reinventing Romeo.