Getting Rid of Bradley

Getting Rid of Bradley is a contemporary romance novel by the American writer Jennifer Crusie, first published in 1994 and reissued in 2008. It won the 1995 RITA Award for best short contemporary romance.

Lucy Savage has just been stood up in divorce court by her husband Bradley, and the rest of her week is no better. A do-it-yourself dye job turns her hair green, a stranger shoots at her, and when a man comes to her rescue she assumes he is the mugger and knocks him down. The rescuer turns out to be Detective Zach Warren, who is investigating an embezzlement that he believes her husband carried out with a friend from school, and who now has a second reason to want Bradley Porter found: whoever is frightening Lucy may be tied to the same case. When the shooting is followed by her car blowing up, Zack decides she needs protection, and the protection becomes a live-in arrangement in her Victorian house that keeps them both awake.

Crusie began her career writing category romance for Harlequin, and she has said that writing this book taught her what a dog can do in the middle of a story.