2003. Rescuing her boyfriend from the long arm of the law seems like such a good idea - until P.J. Smythe discovers he's been cheating on her. Then the judgment part of her brain shut down, and she's the one who lands in jail. Fortunately, P.J.'s best friend Alicia comes to the rescue. After all, what are friends for?

2010. Now it's payback time, and the only thing Alicia wants is for P.J. to play the starring role in a documentary she is filming about a novice private investigator, learning on the job. When P.J.'s first "client," environmentalist Vivian Remington, winds up dead of an overdose, P.J.'s past comes back to haunt her. The police think she supplied the drugs. To clear things up, P.J. must take on the real-life search for a killer.

Like a good friend, Alicia steps up to help. But even that may not be enough when P.J. finds herself facing the wrong end of her own gun.

A fast-paced, light-hearted spoof of the classic hard- boiled whodunit, What are Friends For? explores the lengths to which Annaplolis skip tracer P.J. Smythe must go to dodge a murder charge, including dipping a reluctant toe into the Washington political scene and looking into the seamy side of the illegal trade in wildlife - all while fending off the attentions of her former husband and a really desperate ex-boyfriend.