Sometimes the best way to know a person is by asking questions, so let’s meet Blu.

What is your name?
Blu Irving Carraway. My dad thought it would be cute that my initials spelled a Bic lighter. The nickname never took off, but I did start smoking so there’s that.

How old are you?
Forty-five.

What is your profession?
I own and run a private investigation and security agency called, of all things, the Blu Carraway Investigation Agency.

Do you have a significant other?
Next question.

What is her name?
You’re kind of pushy, aren’t you?

What is her profession?
I mean it, now.

Any children?
A daughter. Her name is Hope. She’s got her mother’s beauty and my eyes and half-Cuban skin tone. And my stubbornness. It was a real challenge when she was growing up. Now that she’s twenty-one, she spends a lot of time keeping me grounded.  She’s the one thing I can say I’ve done right.

Do you have any sibling(s)?
Not by blood, but I do have quite a few brothers in arms. I’m an ex-Ranger. We learned to stick together.

Cats, dogs or other pets?
I live on a nine acre barrier island that’s been in my family for three generations. It’s located south of Charleston, South Carolina. The reason I say that is because when my great-grandfather bought the land, for a steal I might add considering what the properties go for these days, it came with a small herd of Carolina Marsh Tackey horses. They tend to stick around my house so I guess their mine.

What town do you live in?
I just went over that.

House or building complex?
It’s a small bungalow house my grandfather made with his own hands. No air conditioning, but that’s about to change, I think.

Do you rent or own?
The deed’s in my name, but Charleston County reminds me every year who really owns things. I almost lost it to the tax man once.

What is your favorite spot in your house?
The porch. My only neighbors are the inhabitants of the lowcountry marsh and tidal creeks that surround my property. Every morning at dawn, I see a different masterpiece painted before my eyes. Add the horses galloping by and I have to remind myself how lucky I am.

Who is your best friend?
My business partner, Mick Crome. But don’t tell him that. He tends to put things in his life into two categories: What’s in it for him now or what’s in it for him later.

We were in Desert Storm together and when he isn’t drowning in margaritas on Duval Street, Key West, we work security and P.I. jobs together. He’s the smartest man I know and a real bastard. I mean that as a compliment.

Amateur sleuth or professional?
We’re professionals, no matter how unprofessional we come across.

Whom do you work with when sleuthing?
Besides Mick, we’ve gotten friendly with two investigative journalists. Harmony Childs and Tess Ray. Both late twenties, blonde and driven. And they’re too smart to date Mick which is a good thing, especially since it drives him nuts.

Favorite meal?
Give me a pound of peel-and-eat shrimp, a roll of paper towels, a sweet iced tea, and my daughter sitting next to me and I’m a happy man.

Favorite dessert?
Key Lime Pie from Simmons Seafood. The best!

Favorite hobby?
Working out at the gym. I’m friends with these two meatheads that compete for bodybuilding championships. They probably juice up, but I don’t. The routines they come up with leave me sore for a week, but I love it.

Favorite vacation spot?
My hometown. Charleston, South Carolina is paradise.

Favorite color?
I like black. I wear black. It helps me stay acclimated to the summer heat.

Favorite author?
I don’t read much, but I like history. Stephen Ambrose and David McCullough.

Favorite sports team?
Not so much.

Movies or Broadway?
Um. . .

Are you a morning or a night person?
Raising my daughter got me and my then wife on a routine. I became a morning person, but in my profession, time is irrelevant. I have to always be ready to go.

In a few sentences, what is a typical day in your life like?
If I’m not out of the country on a security job, I like to get up early and catch the sunrise while I put water and feed out for the horses. If he’s not on a bender, Mick will join me about nine. We’ll talk about our current client if we have one and what we’re going to do that day. My daughter will sometimes bring lunch by, if I haven’t upset her about something like how dangerous my job really is. Mick and I don’t get offered the easy cases and so end up getting shot at a lot. Harmony and Tess will call with information on our current client and we may meet them later for drinks at our favorite bar, the Pirate’s Cove, on the Isle of Palms. Crome will try and fail to out drink them and will end up passed out at one of our houses. I’ll get some late night lead and venture into the Charleston underworld that I love so much.

And all the while I’ll wonder if the woman I proposed to last month will ever speak to me again.

You can read about Blu in Bad Time To Be In It, the second book in the “Blu Carraway” mystery series. The first book in the series is In It For The Money.

The past is never past. Sometimes it repeats itself. And sometimes it comes back to pay a visit.

Blu Carraway, flush with cash and back in business, never had it so good. Or so he thought.

The reality is his love life is in shambles, his business partner is spending too much time with women half his age and not enough time on the job, and someone close goes missing.

Blu tries to avoid the first and second by focusing on his work, but it’s the third that very nearly does him and everyone around him in.

His business partner goes off the rails, his friends show their true colors, and he realizes that getting closure sometimes means walking away from everything.

With a case from the past gone wrong twice, a loved one in trouble, and an unanswered marriage proposal, it’s a bad time to be in it for Blu Carraway Investigations.

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About the author
David Burnsworth became fascinated with the Deep South at a young age. After a degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Tennessee and fifteen years in the corporate world, he made the decision to write a novel. Bad Time To Be In It is his sixth book. Having lived on Charleston’s Sullivan’s Island for five years, the setting was a foregone conclusion. He and his wife call South Carolina home.

All comments are welcomed.