Electric Blue - Jane Kelly, Bk 2 Author:Nancy Bush Some days are just weird city. Take today. Jane Kelly, thirty something ex-bartender and current process server, is dutifully putting in slave-labour hours working for Dwayne Durbin, local "information specialist" (i.e., private investigator), and on the road to becoming a P.I. herself. Next thing she knows, she's socializing with eccentric rich... more » people who have a penchant for going crazy and/or dying in spectacularly mysterious ways.
A little back story... Jane's usual motto in life is never trust anyone too handsome. But she's willing to make an exception when Jasper "Jazz" Purcell, son of Lake Chinook's wealthiest and most famously eccentric family, comes to ask for her help. Sexy, loaded, and charming, the guy's a real catch. It seems the Purcell matriarch, Orchid, is in her eighties and losing her marbles. And since she controls the family fortune, that could be a bad thing. What Jazz needs is somebody from the outside to convince his grandmother to give up control. Somebody neutral, somebody... with a dog. Orchid likes dogs. And that's how Jane and her pug, The Binkster, end up at Estate Creep-O-Rama, babysitting a dotty old lady, surrounded by a clan so hostile they make "Survivor" look like a hug-fest.
From what Jane can tell, the Purcell family all want Orchid's money; they all hate each other (but not as much as they hate Jane); and they're all hiding some pretty big secrets. And when Orchid turns up in a pool of blood on Jane's watch, the free-for-all has just begun. Diving into the Purcell family history leads Jane on some hair-raising twists and turns through mental illness, greed, deception, betrayal, and lies -- including, but not limited to several mysterious deaths, two car accidents, a depressed guy who paints knives, one creepy playhouse, a family member packed off to an asylum, illegitimate birth, and a flamboyant prodigal daughter with great legs and her sights set on Dwayne, who seems only too happy to play along.
And when Jane finds the second body, it seems weird city is about to get even weirder... and a lot more deadly...« less
This was just the type of book I'd been wanting to read. It stars a heroine who does not bother with makeup and nice stylish clothes (neither do I, give me practical any day). While there are several potential love interests, neither seems to have "chemistry" so I'm just as glad that those brief moments in the book were just that: brief.
The main plot and core of the mystery was solid. The main character is well developed, though she often refers back to events from the first book which, since I haven't read it, weren't clear to me. These events were surrounding her love life which is the book's one downfall, so I was just as happy to skim over those references.
All in all, this is a good and quick read. I would have devoured it in one sitting if my DP had not forced me to go to bed.