Jennifer Crane's favorite thing is shopping for designer clothes. As an aspiring actress living in New York, she's constantly on the prowl for a great deal, and her gay pal Brian is there to help.

Melanie Prescott, Jenn's best friend and former roommate, shows up in her apartment fresh from an NSA job in D.C. Over appletinis, she relays a freaky encounter with a game called Play.Survive.Win. (PSW). In PSW, there are three main players, none who choose to be participants. The target, assassin and protector all have their separate parts in the game, but the cash prize involved if all of the clues are solved (by the target) is substantial.

After a platinum blonde with an intricate bird tattoo buys her favorite pair of Manolo Blahniks out from under her and infects her with a time-release toxin, Jenn is primed to become a part of the game herself, or die trying. As a newly-minted protector, the target (and her protectee) is the stunning but depressed Devlin Brady, an ex-FBI agent with some serious baggage. With a next-day deadline of 10 a.m. and some seriously difficult clues to solve, it's not certain that Jenn and Devlin will make it out alive.

THE MANOLO MATRIX, the follow-up to THE GIVENCHY CODE, is an entertaining and enjoyable story that readers with a taste for chick lit and mystery/suspense will truly enjoy. I found the plot a bit far-fetched and some of the clues difficult to follow, but overall I was impressed with the creative answers. The writing is solid and I appreciated the author's ability to move the story along.