Mix together a fashion model, a navy seal, an artist, a very British love interest, a few Colombian drug dealers and the most delightful heroine you can imagine — a fortune telling, slightly overweight, less-than-successful actress. Then drop everyone into the verdant Irish countryside for a highly unrealistic but humorous romp. Madam Tulip isn’t a mystery per se: there are no clues for the reader to knit together; we know who the bad guys are right from the beginning; we know the gaggle of good guys are going to get themselves into a hopelessly sticky situation and will definitely need a deus ex machina. It’s much like an amusing action film (no surprise: the author, David Ahern, did work in television.) But the sparkling repartee does keep pages turning, and Ahern’s many clever apothegms would be lost on film (‘giving thanks was, after all, the way humans tried to grab a piece of luck and persuade it to stay’)