THE THING ABOUT JANE SPRING

A domineering hellion who couldn’t find her feminine side with a GPS and a flashlight decides to turn her life upside-down and tap into her inner Doris Day.

By all rights this should be something from the lower depths of chick-lit hell. Krum (Walk of Fame, 2001) gives us a fierce Manhattan criminal prosecutor who makes old ladies cry on the stand and men run for the hills. Far from critiquing Jane Spring, the author admires this Army brat who refers disdainfully to the population at large as civilians (no motivation, no discipline) and boasts a father whose idea of a Christmas gift is the new Patton DVD. Oblivious to the destruction she leaves behind her, Spring bulldozes through life, dispensing unasked-for advice on technique to her quickly fleeing lovers and somehow believing that she has everything a man desires in a woman. After overhearing some men in the office talk about what a rhymes-with-witch she is—hot, but not worth the trouble is the consensus—Spring realizes there’s something wrong with her Sherman tank approach, and her world starts to come unglued. She’s gearing up for a big trial involving a cop shooting and feeling pressured by the case’s detective (one of several men Krum keeps juggling around Spring as romantic possibilities), who admonishes her not to screw it up by insulting the judge the way she did during an earlier trial. Then Spring catches a Doris Day movie marathon, which prompts a life-changing idea that she attacks with her usual thoroughness. Newly minted as a snappily dressed, somewhat prudish, but always upbeat blonde, she soon has the jury eating out of the palm of her hand, her co-workers delighted and no-longer-skittish men banging down her door. The expected third-act travails and will-she-or-won’t-she fake dramas are predictable, but for the most part this is a winning fable about the seemingly lost art of being a lady.

Smart and bracingly funny.