2Cool2Btrue

by Simon Brooke

Charlie Barrett, male model, is ready for a career change. It's not that ten years of modelling haven't been fun the Paris shows, the nightclub guest lists, the smart flat and even smarter girlfriend. But, at 33, adverts for comfy cardigans and the Stannah Stairlift loom large in Charlie's future. It's time for him to find a job that offers more challenge than tilting your head left or right on command. So when a chance meeting results in Charlie being offered the job as the face of 2cool2btrue, he readily accepts. 2cool is the web equivalent of Armani, Prada and Gucci; the sexiest thing in cyberspace and everyone wants a piece of it. As their marketing guru, Charlie's days are spent flicking through magazines looking for luxury products for the website to endorse, his nights a whirl of launch parties and champagne. But then things start to go wrong. 2cool's owners disappear. And so does a large amount of money. With his relationship on the rocks, Charlie turns to his old modelling pals for support and finds none of them wants to help a man under investigation for fraud, particularly one labelled 'Pretty Boy' by the Metropolitan Police...

320 pages, Paperback

First published August 21, 2003

About the author

More than 20 years' experience in communications as a public relations professional, spin doctor, journalist, writer and media trainer. Currently he works as a journalist writing for all the the national papers as well as specialist publications and as a media trainer advising the communications departments of various companies, charities and other organisations on how to do interviews so that they get their message across effectively and don't fall for any of the journalistic traps.

Reviews

[Kerri Blessing · Rating 1 out of 5]

It's just ok. Took awhile for the story to get going. I almost stopped reading but wanted to know how it ended.

[Jared · Rating 4 out of 5]

Awesome. I had my doubts about this book when my wife picked it up in the discount section of Chicago's last Border's, mostly because her taste in literature is slightly less than "fine", but I decided to give it a try because this year my goal is to read one book from each letter of the alphabet. Since "2" apparently comes before "a", this one was first on my list.

Initially I had thought that it was going to be a silly book involving things that only silly girls would find interesting, but that all quickly changed when I learned that there were betrayal and mafia-like violence involved! I really had a difficult time putting this book down due to my overwhelming curiosity with respect to the culmination of the story. Since money woes are what are currently keeping me up at night, I identified with the anxiety felt by Charlie, the protagonist of this story. The ending was a bit too "American" for my taste, but all in all it was a quick, painless read that kept me waiting with intense intrigue.