Nancy Bush Candy Apple Red

Candy Apple Red

Nancy Bush

Kensington, Oct 2005, $19.95, 320 pp.

ISBN: 075829053

Although Jane Kelly is thirty, she has yet to settle on a permanent career valuing her freedom that a nine to five career would stifle. At the moment she is working for information specialist (a fancy title for private eye) Dwayne Durbin handing out eviction notices and working as a process server. She agrees to work for Tess Bradbury who wants her to find out what her ex-husband Cotton Reynolds knows about their son Bobby.

Four years ago, Bobby put a bullet in the head of his wife and three children before vanishing into thin air. A massive manhunt by several state and federal agencies turned up nothing. Jane thinks Cotton won't talk to her because he only knew her through Tim Murphy, Bobby's best friend and her ex-lover. After the murders Murphy left town, refusing to believe Bobby could commit such a heinous crime. Now he's back and he wants Jane to join him in Santa Fe but she is obsessed with learning the truth about what happened to Bobby. There are many people who want her to stop her investigation and one will go to any lengths to see that she does.

Nancy Bush has written a delightfully witty and charming crime caper starring a charmingly original heroine who knows herself only too well and accepts her flaws because she refuses to change. She's feisty and funny and connects with the audience in a way most characters rarely do. The mystery is well thought out and totally entertaining so that readers will be eager to read the next tale in this series.

Harriet Klausner