WHAT ARE FRIENDS FOR?

A wannabe filmmaker tests her best friend’s detective skills, and her patience.

For Alicia Todd, being a society girl and Annapolis’ favorite daughter isn’t enough. So she decides to enlist the help of her friend, dependable P.J. (don’t even ask what it stands for) Smythe, who’s usually employed skip tracing for her surrogate father, Uncle Alex Smythe. Suddenly P.J.’s starring in Alicia’s documentary on private investigators, solving whatever cases walk through her door. P.J. isn’t crazy about taking the job, but she feels that she owes Alicia big time. Back in college seven years ago, Alicia was the only one who could help P.J. after she was caught at a crime scene and drug bust at her kind-of-boyfriend Gareth Swenson’s apartment. Now that Gareth has gotten P.J. her first private-eye gig, he also needs her help. He’s up for a job with the DEA, and he wants her to destroy the incriminating photos of drugs she took in his old place. P.J. is distracted from Gareth by the investigation he’s brought in: Vivian Remington of the Wetland Protectors Alliance wants P.J to rustle up an ocelot coat that was supposedly stolen by Vivian’s nemesis, Senator Marguerite Sutherland. While her goal is really to help Alicia, P.J. can’t help but cozy up to Washington lawyer Neal Patterson while clumsily trying to track the truth.

The format is standard, but Taylor’s bright debut throws in enough laughs to please a wide audience.