A woman with an undergraduate degree in math earning her graduate degree in history gets caught up in a dangerous game of life and death when an eccentric millionaire's dying wish makes his assassin role-playing game into a reality. Hunted by an unknown assailant and protected by a gorgeous, sexy, honest and true ex-marine, Mel's obsessive interest in buying clothes and sleeping with her protector is not at all affected by the fact that she has only hours left to decode all of the clues and find the antidote to the poison that will kill her.

Since I'm not a huge fan of either The Da Vinci Code or Sex and the City, didn't figure I was going to like this. However, despite the fact that it certainly owes a lot to each, I actually liked this little romance thriller better! Okay, I find the plot (the role playing game becomes real) and the protagonist's obsession with shoes a bit hard to accept, but at least the book is fun and engrossing. Plus, the math in it may not be high level, but it is basically correct.

Three of the clues include the formulas for curves in the plane, namely