Adventures of Lee and Bucky

Auto mechanic Lee Singer considers New York City her personal playground, with lots of big engines and big tools and the occasional car towed in because those "severe tire damage" signs actually mean what they say. It only adds to the fun when she pops the trunk and finds it full of styrofoam heads. It turns out the client isn't a madman with a decapitation fetish. Instead he's a marine roboticist, and if you send foam objects down to the ocean floor, they shrink under the pressure. Wait, he builds robots? And he's hot? This requires definitive action. A little verbal sparring ensures that not only is he going to take Lee to dinner, but if their date goes well he might just show her his hydraulic manipulator arm. (That's not a euphemism, by the way. His team actually has a submarine in a warehouse near the West Side Highway.) This Lee and Bucky novelette takes place about four months before the first full-length novel, so whether you're new to the series or just teetering on the edge of a great fiction discovery, you'll love this story. Jane Lebak is a novelist and humor writer who pays someone else to change her oil and has never made a shrunken head. Upsie-Daisy is also included in the anthology "Where The Light May Lead."

29-year-old Lee has a Park Slope apartment with easy access to Manhattan, loves her job as an auto mechanic, and can see her guardian angel (a wisecracker with a fascination for the Rumours album.) That's kind of a full life for a kid in the world's biggest playground. Despite what everyone thinks, she doesn't need, or want, a romantic relationship. Far more comfortable in blue jeans and flannel than in heels and satin, Lee finds herself lying to every man she dates. To the physical trainer, she's a preschool teacher; to the guy at the bowling alley, she's a secretary. The lies keep romance at arm's length even as they drive the angel to distraction until the day she realizes she's fallen for a straight-laced accountant who's exploring his dark side through bizarre foods (please note: sea cucumber is not a vegetable). But now he thinks she's someone she's not. Now she's got to turn those mechanic skills on herself to diagnose and repair the most important relationships in her life. And just think, she used to find it tough repairing a transmission! Long-time comedy writer and novelist Jane Lebak serves up a hilarious comedy with angels and spare tires and a recipe for the best omelets you've ever tasted. Also what may be the most romantic toilet-fixing scene in the English language. But there really isn't an award for that, so we'll never know.