I need to begin with a confession. My name is Emily and I used to read and write Veronica Mars fan fiction. It’s important to know this in order to understand where this review is coming from. I love the Veronica Mars universe so much that I wanted to spend as much time as possible in it.
That’s exactly what Veronica Mars: The Thousand Dollar Tan Line by Rob Thomas and Jennifer Graham allows us to do. It picks up right after the end of the movie. Veronica has begun to work for Mars Investigations. Keith is still out of commission due to the car accident that took place in the movie and Logan is still deployed and only shows up via email and Skype. Business is slow so Veronica starts the book with plenty of reasons to question her decision to give up a lucrative job as a lawyer in New York for being a PI in her hometown.
A girl spending spring break in Neptune goes missing and the Chamber of Commerce hires Veronica to look for her. Since Keith is mostly stuck at home recovering, Veronica mostly interacts with Mac, Wallace, and people involved in the case. This is fantastic because I love Mac and Wallace and I didn’t think that we got to spend nearly enough time with them in the movie.
Rob Thomas as said that this is most likely the first in a series of Veronica Mars books. I welcome the continuation of the universe in pretty much any form as long as it’s actually coming from Rob Thomas in some way. The actual writing was fairly simple but this works for something that began life as a TV show. I was able to picture the action easily and the dialogue was of a similar standard to the TV show and the movie.
Recommended if you can never get enough of Neptune, CA and snarky, blonde detectives.
An Inanimate F*cking Blog 
My only complaint was that I was mildly disappointed to lose the first-person voice/device used on the show. Only the first section didn’t have Veronica and it’s pretty common for a prologue to be in a different voice.
The only thing I can think of is that they were trying to set the style for the entire series of books. When the book was announced, it was said that some of the books may focus more on peripheral characters than on Veronica. I do agree that it seemed like an oversight to not put the books in first person from V’s point of view.