JEWELRY FROM A GRAVE

When a former skip tracer’s roommate goes missing, it turns out she may have had a secret life, or she may have been investigating too many of someone else’s secrets.

Now that she’s finished with the private-eye business—or, more accurately, finished impersonating a private eye—P.J. Smythe (What Are Friends For?, 2011) thinks her life will settle into a routine organized around her new adult job with Chatham Confidential Investigations and her boyfriend, Leo, the more forensically minded of the couple. How hard can it be to punch a clock and run simple background checks on folks who have never crossed the line in their lives? Unfortunately, P.J. soon finds out the answer to that question when her roommate and co-worker, Yolanda Branson, mysteriously disappears. P.J., who’s always considered Yolanda a Black American Princess, is more than a little surprised when her boss, Gray Dalton, offers her a bounty for tracking down Yolanda. P.J.’s had some experience with the princess lifestyle, since her lifelong friend Alicia is a Caucasian member of the species. She’s sure there’s a logical explanation for the disappearance until a DEA agent breaks into her house and insists that Yolanda’s involved in a drug ring. A mysterious file labeled “FUNNY BUSINESS” that P.J. finds in Yolanda’s office makes her wonder whether there’s more to her roommate than she assumed. The stress of her suspicions, combined with a vindictive ex, sends P.J. running from place to place uncertain whom to trust.

Disjointed writing makes it hard to follow, and harder to care about, P.J.’s current shenanigans.