Some days are just weird city.
Take today. Jane Kelly, thirtysomething ex-bartender and
current process server, is dutifully putting in slave-
labor hours working for Dwayne Durbin, local “information
specialist” (i.e., private investigator), and on the road
to becoming a P.I. herself. Next thing she knows she’s
socializing with eccentric rich people who have a penchant
for going crazy and/or dying in spectacularly mysterious
ways. A little back story…
Jane’s usual motto in life is never trust anyone too
handsome. But she’s willing to make an exception when
Jasper “Jazz” Purcell, son of Lake Chinook’s wealthiest
and most famously eccentric family, comes to ask for her
help. Sexy, loaded, and charming, the guy’s a real catch.
It seems the Purcell matriarch, Orchid, is in her eighties
and losing her marbles. And since she controls the family
fortune, that could be a bad thing. What Jazz needs is
somebody from the outside to convince his grandmother to
give up control. Somebody neutral. Somebody…with a dog.
Orchid likes dogs. And that’s how Jane and her pug, The
Binkster, end up at Estate Creep-O-Rama, babysitting a
dotty old lady, surrounded by a clan so hostile they
make “Survivor” look like a hug-fest.
From what Jane can tell, the Purcell family all want
Orchid’s money; they all hate each other (but not as much
as they hate Jane); and they’re all hiding some pretty big
secrets. And when Orchid turns up in a pool of blood on
Jane’s watch, the free-for-all has just begun. Diving into
the Purcell family history leads Jane on some hair-raising
twists and turns through mental illness, greed, deception,
betrayal, and lies—including, but not limited to several
mysterious deaths, two car accidents, a depressed guy who
paints knives, one creepy playhouse, a family member
packed off to an asylum, illegitimate birth, and a
flamboyant prodigal daughter with great legs and her
sights set on Dwayne, who seems only too happy to play
along. And when Jane finds the second body, it seems weird
city is about to get even weirder…and a lot more deadly…