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Trainee PI Jane Kelly works with her partner Dwayne Durbin. She is now on a case for Violet Purcell to try to prove that ultra rich and ultra chic Violet didn't kill her ex-husband Roland Hatchmere on his daughter's wedding day. The thing is, Jane isn't that certain that Violet is innocent. Violet does admit to hitting her ex over the head with a heavy silver tray and she says they were fighting after having spent time together in bed, but she insists that Roland was alive and well when she left. Jane agrees to work the case after she tells Violet that the police will be getting what she discovers, even if Violet is guilty. Jane does admit that Violet could be innocent, because there are wedding bandits around, a group of thieves who target families celebrating a wedding that day by breaking into their homes and stealing everything they can get their hands on. It's possible that Roland had interrupted the criminals and they killed him. Meanwhile, Dwayne, her boss, mentor and center of her daydreams is recuperating from a wound to his leg by sitting on his dock and using his binoculars to check out the people across from his house overlooking Lake Chinook. He soon becomes worried about a young girl who seems to be over her head as she parties with other teens on a bit of land that's under construction. Dwayne asks Jane to look into the girl's plight – undercover – and he will pay her as if she is on a regular case. Now Jane hasn't seen high school in a decade and she knows that going undercover might take some talent, but she accepts the job for Dwayne. As Jane investigates Violet, she interviews the family of the dead man. All of them are certain that Violet is the killer, and there's no love lost between any of them. Jane also finds that they all seem to have a reason to kill the late Roland Hatchmere. The latest wife knew he was cheating on her with Violet, the daughter is as weepy and spoiled and crazed as all get out, and the other ex-wives and family members can hardly hold their anger back. Jane sees she will have to wade through all these people to find the real killer. Jane is a breezy, funny, young woman who is still shaky when it comes to her own love life. Unfortunately, that part of her personality is beginning to grate on me. She's almost 30 and after seeing some of the shadier sides of life as a PI and as a process server, Jane should be more sure of herself by now. Sometimes Jane strikes me as totally incompetent and silly with her head more filled with what she'll have for dessert than the cases on which she is working. Yet at the same time Jane can escape from many a tight situation rather well and in that way she is competent. Yet in this book there's a bit of undercover work that just doesn't work for me. Jane works undercover as a teenager! No matter how much make-up a 27-year-old woman has on or how she wears her hair or brings her voice up higher, being mistaken for an 18-year-old isn't something she can easily do, especially with real teenagers around her. That Jane pulls it off as she parties and talks with the kids doesn't register as realistic. ULTRAVIOLET is a mostly fun book with a fast-thinking lead. I just wish the writer, Nancy Bush, would let Jane grow up and stop having her be so insecure when dealing with her professional and her personal life. Let her figure out if she wants Dwayne, then have her act upon that idea and stick with it already!
Reviewed by A. L. Katz, November 2007
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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