I was pleasantly surprised when all the talk and rumor of a Veronica Mars film actually came to fruition.  I was even more pleased when the final product was about as solid as I ever could have hoped, given the small budget and the long-standing expectations.  Both something of a conclusion and a reboot, Veronica Mars was a fresh start.

 

Only time will tell if the experiment will succeed.  Funding partially by a Kickstarter campaign, the theatrical release of the film might best be labeled “limited”, and it was far from a rousing box office success.  With a budget of $6M, it’s made just over half of that back in domestic returns.  However, it should be noted that the film released on the same day on-demand and on digital platforms, and there is currently no data on how well the film did in that regard.  It’s reasonable to think that a lot of people wanted to see the movie, couldn’t find it in a nearby theatre, and opted for the digital version.  (Which is exactly what I did.)

 

I think it’s a toss-up whether or not another film is made; I imagine all the major players would be up for it, especially given Kristen Bell’s enduring love for the character.  In the meantime, Rob Thomas also managed to convince Vintage to publish a series of novels based on the character, and “The Thousand Dollar Tan Line” is the first to hit the shelves.

 

In essence, the novel is a straight-up sequel to Veronica Mars, covering some of the more obvious consequences of the choices made by the end of the film.  That’s a very good thing, because a good part of the novel is devoted to Veronica’s battles to re-establish herself in the world of Neptune, CA.  As usual, once she’s on the case, officially or not, she manages to pave her way forward with relative confidence.  It’s the more personal moments that tend to confound her, especially as she tries to convince her father and others that she made the right choice.

 

The case itself has a lot of nice twists and turns.  The disappearance of one girl initiates the case, which is complicated when a second girl disappears under seemingly similar circumstances.  I was never quite sure where the investigation was going to go, yet the resolution to both mysteries never struck me as contrived.  Everything about the case fits perfectly into the corrupt paradise that Neptune has always been shown to be.  Not only that, but there are shades of Veronica’s “origins” that add layers to what she uncovers.

 

One nice touch is that the ongoing debate between Veronica and her father over her choice to stay in Neptune and resume her private investigator life is given closure by the end of the book.  Keeping that tension going for too long would be utterly repetitive in future novels, and it sets the stage well for future volumes.  Also, while the idea of Veronica scraping by to keep Mars Investigations running would fit well into the standard noir model, having it end with the future looking a bit more promising than that prevents another source of repetition.

 

On the down side, the novel does have a few flaws.  Veronica has a personal connection to the second missing girl that seems a bit hard to swallow.  Granted, it touches on elements from the series and what would logically be a lingering character thread, but it also feels shoe-horned into the story to create an unnecessary conflict of interest.

 

Another issue is Veronica’s supposed lack of experience with firearms, and reluctance to even handle one.  Since when is that an issue?  More to the point, she was briefly training with the FBI (a nod to the potential direction of a never-made fourth season).  Wouldn’t she have been trained at that point?  It comes across an artificial way to bring Weevil into the plot, to remind the readers what happened in the film is still not resolved!

 

It also bothered me that Veronica’s violent run-in with the notorious brothers of a Mexican cartel, including the accusations that she tosses out at them, has little or no consequence.  It’s hard to believe that they would simply let things lie and not deliver some kind of message.  Since the likely outcome would have been somebody dying, it would have made more sense to find another way to arrive at the same plot points.

 

All that said, this is about as good a follow-up to Veronica Mars as one could ask for.  The slight character and plot problems are hardly unique in terms of a franchise tie-in novel, after all, and it’s great to see the lingering threads from the film directly addressed (with a couple notable exceptions) in the first related novel.  The next novel is supposedly slated for November 2014, so there’s plenty of time to catch up!