The story begins with a San Francisco private detective escorting his daughter to his ex-wife's bit part stage performance in the Big Apple. The relationship between PI and aspiring actress is strained, but, on occasion, they still sleep together (or so it was implied at the end of one chapter). The wife and child seem accessory to the story and not much help in the plot. Worse, the characters are not especially engaging and their relationships are not well developed (perhaps that is the "breezy" part).
There are two funny bits where the author portrays extreme examples of rather distinct New York speech. But their farcical tone (one, an ex-boxer with a strong Brooklyn accent playing Cyrano de Bergerac on stage) is implausible and so different as to be jarring while calling attention to how unamusing the rest of the book is.