Electric Blue
Nancy Bush
Kensington, Oct 2006, $19.95
ISBN: 075820907X

Dwayne Durbin is mentoring process server Jane Kelly on the fine art of becoming an information specialist also known as a private detective. For the most part the rookie is doing great work. He assigns her to tail a woman at a spa whose husband believes she is cheating on him. She discovers who the perpetrator is vandalizing a homeowner whose house extension is opposed by his neighbors. She is paid for these jobs, but the Purcell case, which takes up much of her time, is gratis.

Jazz Purcell contacts Dwayne who dumps him on Jane because he thinks she and he and his blood kin are crazy. Jane meets Jazz's grandmother Orchid to learn if the elderly matriarch is mentally slipping perhaps into dementia or Alzheimer's. Jane is uncertain, but advices Orchid not to grant power of attorney to any or her relatives as the tyro sleuth trusts none of them to care for the interests of the geriatric and probably want her dead. When Orchid dies, Jane feels a murder occurred and is obsessed with uncovering the killer's identity though that places her and Dwayne at risk.

Nancy Bush has written a witty clever private investigative tale that is filled with plenty of surprises and skeletons that see the light of day due to the stubbornness of the heroine. Jane is a hoot as she turns away from the wealthy handsome Jazz because he is not the one yet remains in denial when it comes to Dwayne who deep down may be the one. Readers will be disturbed by the dysfunctional seemingly uncaring Purcell family that in some ways could come from recent headlines. Electric Blue is simply electrifying thanks mostly to Jane who concocts quite a cocktail.

Harriet Klausner