Blue Blood (Debutante Dropout Mysteries) [Mass Market Paperback]

Andy's mom, Cissy Blevins Kendricks, is formidable; doing everything she can to introduce Andy to the "right" people, especially the right husband. The book begins with Andy in a restaurant with her mother and yet another prospective beau; the evening was presented to Andy as a "night out with just us girls." Andy is unstoppable in her own way: she will smile at her mother but do things her own way and in her own good time.

Then Andy hears from her best friend from her prep school days. Molly never fit in either, being the "scholarship girl" from a series of foster homes. The girls went off to art college together but Molly ran off to Paris with her boyfriend, got pregnant, and was dumped. Ten years later, Molly is calling Andy for help: she is accused of murdering her boss at the restaurant where she worked as a waitress. The restaurant is a hillbilly version of Hooters, and the boss not only hit on the staff frequently, he seemed to have plenty of enemies. But the police are convinced that they have arrested the culprit and Molly is denied bail, leaving Andy to take care of Molly's young son.

Andy isn't an investigator, she's a website designer. She asks her mother to hire a lawyer for Molly, and mother reluctantly complies. But the young man doesn't believe Molly is innocent, and doesn't seem to be trying very hard to help her. So it's up to Andy to find the real killer.

I enjoyed McBride's descriptions and characters more than the underlying mystery. Andy is haunted by her father's untimely death (right before her planned debut), and clearly has more in common with him than her society mother. But there weren't enough possible killers in the book to mislead me, the mark of a good whodunnit. I was able to identify the guilty party far sooner than I should have because one clue was far too obvious. The bad guys were coarsely drawn, with little nuance or any redeeming features. And too many intermediate clues were clear to the reader well before Andy picked up on them. I also felt McBride didn't convince me of Andy's expertise in her career as a website designer. Someone comfortable with digital photography and HTML code (or even MS FrontPage) should have had more computer skills and savvy than Andy ever demonstrated. The book could have worked just as well with Andy as a freelance writer or an accountant without changing anything else in the plot!

This a good, mindless, fun read, suitable for beaches or airplanes. But as a mystery it is lacking. mad-haus 1 March 2004

Though Andy hasn't heard from Molly in ten years, she jumps into the fray--rescuing the boy (and dumping him at her mother's Highland Park mansion, much to Cissy's dismay). She just knows Molly could never possibly kill someone under any circumstances, and she is determined to prove her friend's innocence. With the help of Molly's inexperienced (but cute) lawyer, Andy delves into the mystery, going so far as to get herself hired at the "Hooters"-type restaurant where the murder took place, and where Molly worked as a waitress. In purple hot pants and a stuffed bra, she gathers the evidence against the suspects, which include a randy televangelist, a former Dallas Cowboys cheerleader, a rabid activist who regularly pickets the restaurant, a mysterious silent partner, and a host of sexually harassed waitresses.

This is a cute read, with an amusingly eccentric cast of characters. Though I felt Andy was inexcusably reckless at times (like when she barges into a motel room where she knows the possible murderer is having illicit sex), I couldn't help cheering for her. And though the humor felt a bit forced in places, I did snicker out loud several times. This is a must-read for anyone within or on the fringes of Dallas high society. The author certainly nails that world.