Nancy Bush, Ultra Violet

Ultra Violet

Nancy Bush

Kensington, Oct 2007, $19.95, 363 pp.

ISBN 9780758209092

Dwayne Durban is head of his own private investigative firm; he has taken Jane Kelly on as his apprentice so she not only is a process server but she gets to work cases. Right now Jane is working all the cases because Dwayne is immobilized with a broken leg and he has taken up voyeurism spying with his binoculars at the neighbors across the street. Dwayne thinks one of the girls is in trouble and he wants Jane to investigate the tens who uses an empty home as a hang out.

While she is doing that she comes to the conclusion that something illegal is going on revolving around the high school star football player Keegan and she intends to find out what it is and if he is breaking the law bring him down. She is also working on the case of Violet Purcell who believes the police think she killed ex-husband, Roland Hatchmere. She wants Jane, who isn't so sure she is innocent, to prove that someone else killed her ex-husband. Since Dwayne believes she is innocent, Jane works double time because everyone involved with Roland, his two ex- wives, his children and all his friends think she is guilty. In the pursuit of proving Violet innocent, she breaks up a call girl ring and takes on a killer who nobody will ever believe murdered two men and is now going after Jane.

There are plenty of private investor mysteries being written but Jane Kelly is original, unique, and funny. Her efforts not to fall in love with her boss and partner or buy the cottage she can afford are truly hilarious. Her relationship with the Binkster, her puig, is adorable and shows her caring vulnerable side of her self she tries to keep hidden. With homage to Rear Window, Nancy Bush creates delightful villains readers love to hate and her heroine is somebody most people will admire.

Harriet Klausner