Cate Fante’s career is on the rise. As Dirty Blonde opens, Cate has just been appointed a federal judge. She has a great career, the great house, all the trappings of success. But Cate also has a little secret—she likes to stop in seedy bars, pick up random men and find the nearest hotel for a little bit of adult fun.

Six months later, Cate is the federal judge on an intellectual property right’s case about the hit drama Attorneys@Law. The defendent, Richard Martz is suing big Hollywood producer Art Simone for allegedly stealing the idea, character and concepts for the show. Cate reluctantly has to dismiss the case, but not before giving Simone her two cents on who he is and what he did. Martz doesn’t take the news well and before you know it, Simone is dead, Martz is the prime suspect and it looks like Cate could be next on the list for revenge.

That is only the beginning of Cate’s string of bad luck. Her proclivities come to light, her life is in danger, her best-friend is in danger and her love life is crashing down around her. Add in findng out a secret about her father from the past and you’ve got a lot happening to Cate in the course of just a couple of days.

While Lisa Scottoline is able to keep the pages breathlessly turning with one twist or big development after the next, this is a novel that is long on plot, short on character. Instead of really getting at why Cate picks up men for random sex but rejects a suitor who pampers her and declares his love for her, Dirty Blonde instead goes for more action and more twist and turns along the way. Sure, the pages turn, but at the end of the novel, I was left wanting more character exploration of Cate and what made her tick.

This problem extends to every other character in the book as well. Character traits and developments come fast and furious, serving little more purpose than to be yet another red herring or blind alley for the story to follow. That is, until we reach the inevitable unmasking of the person behind all of this—a twist that is trying so hard to be a twist, that it’s not convincingly set up. There is no foundation laid for it early in the story and it just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense when you give it any kind of scrutiny.