BOOBY TRAP
by Sue Ann Jaffarian
It’s always nice to be Odelia Grey’s friend, especially when you think your son may be a serial killer.
Even though she promised her new husband, Greg Stevens, to lay off the sleuthing, paralegal Odelia Grey (Thugs and Kisses, 2008) can’t turn down 70-year-old Lillian’s Ramsey’s plea. Lil thinks her son, plastic surgeon Brian Eddy, may be the notorious “Blond Bomber,” named not for his own coif but the golden tresses of the victims he binds, rapes and murders. Once Odelia agrees to help, she get an additional surprise. Wheelchair-bound Greg’s decided that if he can’t beat her, he’ll join her. He sets up appointments with Lisa, the sister of murdered nurse Laurie Luke, and teenaged victim Gabby Kerr’s mother Debra. He even joins Odelia at an interview with Gordon Harper, ex-husband of dead stripper Crystal Lee Harper, who frosts Greg’s buns by ogling Odelia’s ample curves. Unfortunately, all roads lead back to Brian, since his wife, decorator Jane Sharp, seems to have provided all the victims’ families with the latest in pleated shades and faux finishes. But Odelia’s convinced that even though the good doctor wields a mean scalpel, he wouldn’t hurt a fly with it, and she’s willing to put her generous butt on the line to prove her point.
Concentrating on the puzzle and her trademark smart dialogue, Jaffarian does some surgery of her own, leaving a lean plotline for plump Odelia.