Ultra Violet by Nancy Bush

c Waterloo Public Library 2008

Ultra Violet by Nancy Bush (2007) is the most recent book in the Jane Kelly series. Remember Violet, the gorgeous big sister from the Purcell clan from Electric Blue? She's back, with a big problem. Her ex-husband Roland was just murdered, and tragically it happened on the day his daughter was to be married. To complicate matters, Violet had to admit to the police that she and Roland had argued that morning and she hit him with a large silver tray--her gift to the bride and groom. However, she swears that Roland was alive and angry when she left the house.

Jane finds herself more or less in charge of the investigation, because Dwayne is nursing an injured leg; he broke it during the wrap up of a previous case. Since then, he has developed a fascinating new hobby: he sits on his deck or in his living room and watches the neighbors across the lake with his binoculars. He has a nickname for each house and its inhabitants, and spends most of his day observing their routines.

Jane first thinks that this is a harmless hobby, although she says, "If it smacked a little too much of Jimmy Stewart's character in Rear Window, well, it wasn't like he was going to ask me to solve a murder over there" (11). Nah, as it turns out, he is concerned about the younger daughter of one of the families he's watching--she and her big sister are partying after the high school football games at a nearby house under construction. Dwayne thinks someone needs to investigate things, so Jane goes undercover as a high school kid from a nearby town...

Meanwhile, she's trying to prove that Violet didn't kill Roland, but she's having a hard time getting anyone to talk to her, and she has a feeling that Violet hasn't been entirely honest with them. As time goes on, Dwayne seems to get even more obsessed with his "people watching" thing and Jane's getting really stressed out when her landlord announces he's going to sell the cottage. However, she's had a breakthrough: it seems that Roland met all of his three wives at the same place--a special club for men--and Jane gets a chance to crash one of their parties.

Want to read an excerpt of the story? Go to the author's website.

You can find Ultra Violet with the New Books/Mystery at the Waterloo Public Library.