Confusion Ferry.

Prologue:

Somebody died in a sinister yet intriguing manner.

Excerpt from Chapter 4:

The rocking of the superfast ferry cutting its way across the cold Aegean Sea from Italy to Greece woke Adrienne Roth from her brief sleep. Her blue-gray eyes and fabulous hair both quivered as she looked across the lounge and realized that something was desperately out of place.

"What's wrong?" a gruff voice asked her, causing her to drop her expensive Dolce and Gabana bag into the seat next to her and turn towards the voice.

Patrick Geffin was a bear of a man, with a gruff, scratchy voice brought on by years of work as a shouter, a top-secret job in an unknown government agency that the author of this book just invented because all the real ones are too boring.

"Nothing serious. Or at least I plan on thinking it isn't serious for the next 3/4ths of the book." Adrienne replied. "It's just that everyone on this ferry, and the past 18 trains we've taken through exotic locations like Southern Spain and the Black Forest, has been reading the same books. The Dan Brown Novels."

Patrick's eyes flashed, and Adrienne immediately suspected he might be the villain behind some sinister plot--this was stupid of her, since the villain is always the one that seems most helpful at the beginning of the book. "What do you mean?" he said.

"Well, we were sent on this amazing voyage by a secret government spy-cell that works with lasers bounced off the rim of the atmosphere to determine the location of underwater submarine refueling stations (a job which requires no field-work, yet inexplicably places us in the field), but obviously this mystery of the popularity of Dan Brown novels is a far more pressing concern and we should investigate it in detail."

Patrick shook his head wearily. "I think you're getting off topic. Why don't we continue to try and determine why that mysterious person died in the prologue without so much as one hint of resistance?"

With a sigh, Adrienne nodded. Mysteries were mysteries after all, and that unimportant dead man had sparked off another one. Just once Adrienne wanted a nice, easy mission that involved actually doing the job that her character's three-paragraph description invoked--something about submarines, she thought--but apparently it was not to be.

She turned back towards the task at hand--unraveling a series of clues and riddles that would take a reader of Brian Jacque's Redwall series less than 15 minutes to solve, and tossed her hair in annoyance. "Patrick, do you ever wonder why we get sent on these missions?"

"I think it is because we are the only two attractive people in the agency, and if we sit in the cubicle farm too long, they get jealous." Patrick said, inserting a sad attempt at humour into their thrill-filled lives. Adrienne found this charming, though no-one was quite sure why.

Excerpt from chapter 1,112:

The villain died in a gruesome and dramatic manner.

Excerpt from Chapter 1,459:

Somebody got laid.

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Explanation: Go read some Dan Brown. We recommend starting with Da Vinci Code, because that is the one everyone talks about, and then Digital Fortress, because around the edges are bits that are almost palatable, as long as you have no formal computer training. Then, if you want the literary equivalent of food poisoning, we recommend Deception Point.