Della B's Bleu Glo - Paperback

Della B's Bleu Glo is a novel based on the nature of a national, and even a world, population that succumbs to the siren's leadership of celebrities, emulating fads that homogenize lives and sometimes have psychological or physical impacts on those who are disciples. In this case, a low-level scientist accidentally discovers a material that can serve as a dye that luminesces. He and his wife dream of avoiding his commitments to the company for which he works and making a fortune off the dye. The wife grows frustrated with the slow progress and misdirections of her husband as he develops the dye and seeks her fortune by divorcing her husband and marrying the son of the owners of the company her husband worked for. When the ex-husband achieves success, she backstabs him and reveals that he discovered the dye during company time. In the resulting suit, the company takes over the patent for the dye and, under the sponsorship of a noted hip-hop singer, launches a line of glowing blue cosmetics that becomes a worldwide fad.

Continuing his research on the dye, the scientist discovers that the dye has a half-life, with its molecules gradually attaching themselves to organic compounds as it reconfigures itself and loses its ability to glow. Since skin is organic, he realizes that the cosmetics are attaching themselves to human beings and doing damage. With lasers, he develops a way to correct this damage and opens a clinic to correct the problem, only then revealing what is happening to people throughout the world.

Under this overarching story are subplots of a marriage to an ambitious woman who is beautiful beyond the dreams of her husband, whose ambition leads to the murder of a scientist who might interfere with her becoming wealthy from her husband's discovery, of the murder of a fellow worker who rapes her to keep him from ruining her life, of her attempt to disrupt her ex-husband's later success by trying to involve him in one of the murders, and of the accidental discovery of the wrong body that leads to her arrest.

Underlying the story are the moral questions of adequate cosmetic testing and of the responsibility of an individual to warn the public of a danger when he knows it, especially when he is delaying notification while he develops a way to correct the danger and make a personal fortune.