Something Green

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About Something Green

Written by Drew Zachary
74 pages / 31000 words
ISBN: 978-1-60370-018-4, 1-60370-018-8
Available file types - html, lit, pdf, prc, print (with Eye Spy and With My Little Eye)

The boys from Eye Spy and My Little Eye are back in this third installment about the private eye and the ghost!

Things seem to be going well for DB and Jesse for a change and then Detective Joe Donners shows up. Donners starts pressing DB for the truth about how DB always seems to be one step ahead. Compounding this is Jesse's belief that Donners wants to be more than just friends with DB.

So when Madame Yanya calls, needing DB and Jesse's services to deal with a ghost who just won't leave her alone, DB figures it's all in a strange day's work. Can DB solve the mystery, fob off the detective, and keep his love life, such as it is, from imploding right before his very eyes?


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Review

Kiernan Kelly, author of the In Bear Country books, writes: DB Black is a private detective with a most unusual partner…a ghost named Jesse. Jesse, in fact, is DB's partner in every way -- his friend, his lover, and the best spy on the planet. Zachery first introduced us to this unique and intriguing pairing in Eye Spy, and this third installment is no less fresh, witty, and captivating.

In Something Green, DB and Jesse are still together, still solving crimes and heating the sheets whenever possible. When a friend of DB and Jesse's, Madam Yanya -- a crossdressing psychic and one of the few people in addition to DB who can also see and hear ghosts -- finds herself the victim of a haunting, she calls in DB and Jesse to figure out why the ghost of the former owner of her house has come home to roost. There's a mystery to be solved, compounded by another new face -- a detective named Joe Donners, who finds DB very attractive…much to Jesse's irritation.

Readers need not have read Eye Spy or With My Little Eye to enjoy this newest offering from Zachery, although I recommend the first books as highly as I do this one. From the first page in Something Green, the reader is swept up in the lives of a living man and his ghostly lover, delighting in their banter and the love they obviously share, as well as the mystery they strive to solve. Jesse is as awesome lover, even if he is a ghost, and DB returns the favor in kind in several very hot, intimate love scenes.

For a different sort of pairing and a fast-moving plot sprinkled with intense sex, this is a not to be missed read!
Sample

DB didn't like crime scenes much, which put him in totally the wrong line of business. As a private investigator he wound up at a lot of them. He was often the guy calling the cops -- like this case, where he'd had to work on talking Benny Supalo out of shooting the woman Benny'd taken hostage in the head while DB waited for the cavalry to show up.

Two minutes after the official negotiator had turned up, Benny Supalo had jumped out of the second floor window. DB was sure Benny'd been going for offing himself, but instead had only managed to cause grievous harm. The important thing was he was now in custody and the woman he'd taken was safe.

DB had to stick around, though, and answer all the usual questions about how he'd gotten there so fast, how he'd known what was going down. There'd be the usual finger pointing and suspicions that he couldn't allay, because the truth would just get him thrown in the loony bin, and he had plans for later tonight, thank you very much.

That wasn't the real reason he didn't like crime scenes, though.

And it wasn't about all the lights and noise and usually-copious amounts of blood.

No, DB didn't like crime scenes because they attracted a ton of people, drew crowds in like the horror shows they were. Gawkers. Tons of them. Human and ghost alike, and there was his problem.

DB couldn't tell which ones were real and which ones were ghosts. Or at least he couldn't until someone walked through someone else, and then he knew. But that happened much less often than you'd think.

He had to be careful who he talked to because nobody else could see the ghosts, and he'd be looking at that trip to the loony bin again if he was found holding conversations with himself.

So he leaned against the side of a car, wishing he had a coffee and watching the chaos unfolding in front of him. Unfortunately, just going home made the cops cranky; someone would be over to the car to question him eventually.

"Come on, DB." There was a hint of whine in the voice. "Can't you just... you know. Walk away? They know where to find you." Jesse was pacing a little bit, worked up enough that when he turned too fast, his hip slid through the trunk of the car. "Let's go home, okay?"

He didn't answer. Without that coffee cup to hide his mouth behind, he was back to looking nuts if he talked to himself. He did sigh, though. It wasn't like he wanted to stay -- he was wound up, too, and going home with Jesse to get it on as best they could... well, that appealed a whole lot more than standing around waiting for Joe Friday to finally show up and grill him.

"I hate this part." Jesse was talking with his hands, gesturing as he paced. "The rest is cool enough, you running around like a big damn hero with your big damn gun and talking away trying to save the day -- which you do, don't get me wrong! -- but this part bites. When's he gonna come and talk to you, anyway? We don't have all night, here!"

DB shrugged. He didn't know. And, frankly, he wasn't feeling hugely heroic. He caught sight of the little brunette Benny had taken, walking away from the ambulance where they'd been checking her out. Okay, maybe he was a little heroic.

"Oh, oh, oh!" Jesse bounced. Man, he was really riled up. "Here he comes. Talk fast, okay?"

A cop was making his way over, his suit rumpled and his eyes tired. He had coffee, two cups of it, even. "You Black?" he asked when he got close enough to talk to DB.

DB nodded. "But you can call me DB, everyone does."
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