Disappointment in Marrakech

I honestly can't remember why I picked up Lulu in Marrakech by Diane Johnson. It could be because of the setting. Or it could be because the cover is pretty and shiny. I'm easily distracted by shiny things. But this just goes to show that you shouldn't judge a book by its cover. The pretense is that Lulu, on assignment for the CIA, takes up residence in Marrakech to investigate the flow of money from Europe and America to Islamic terrorist groups via Moroccan banking. When I see the words CIA and terrorist group in the description, I'm expecting a quickly paced story. But at 60+ pages into this story, nothing much of interest has happened, so that's about where I gave up. To be fair, the slower pace was not the main reason why I was not enjoying the book. The main thing that grated on my nerves was the language used by Lulu. The story is set in the present and Lulu is supposed to be a single American woman in her thirties. Yet some of the things she says just don't sound natural to me. She refers to her boyfriend several times as her "lover." First: I hate that word. It's so cheesy. That word should be saved for trashy romance novels. Second: Who actually talks like that? I have never heard any of my thirty-something friends use that word (or anyone else, for that matter). Who says "I'm going to visit my lover" or "Mom, I'm moving in with my lover"? No one, that's who. Lulu also says "we rose from the table to take a turn around the gardens." Is she channeling Elizabeth Bennett? If Lulu was British, I could maybe let that go, but has anyone ever heard a young American woman use that phrase? Yes, these are little things, but it was enough to put me off Lulu. Johnson is a two-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and a three-time finalist for the National Book Award, so clearly she must know a thing or two about writing. I think I was just expecting a different kind of story. I was expecting a fast-paced girl-spy book and that's not what I got. I'm sure the story is perfectly good for the type of novel it is, but I'll leave that up to someone else.