- Hardcover: 293 pages
- Publisher: William Morrow & Co (January 1996)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0688114601
- ISBN-13: 978-0688114602
- Product Dimensions: 24.1 x 15.5 x 3.6 cm
- Shipping Weight: 590 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #1,915,688 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
Long before she started her hot new series about Arizona sheriff Joanna Brady, J. A. Jance was already one of the stalwarts of the police procedural genre because of her books about Seattle homicide detective J. P. Beaumont. Like the Brady novels, the Beaumont books are a perfect balance of the personal and the professional--placing the main characters in human contexts without making them seem cute or trite. The latest Beaumont, just out in paperback, is one of the best in the series: Beau wrestles at home with his own dying ex-wife and the vindictive former spouse of his best friend, while his office time is spent trying to discover who murdered a very nasty biotech executive. Previous Beaumont books in paperback include: Dismissed With Prejudice, Failure to Appear, Improbable Cause, Lying in Wait, Minor in Possession, Until Proven Guilty, Without Due Process.
--This text refers to the
Mass Market Paperback
edition.
From Publishers Weekly
Investigating the shooting death of a man whose corpse is found in Elliott Bay, Seattle homicide detective J.P. Beaumont, seen last in Lying in Wait, turns up an excess of suspects. Nobody grieves when the victim is identified. An executive at biotechnology start-up company, he had been involved in everything from corporate power grabs to rape. The rape victim's aunt, a local antiques dealer, confesses and demands to be arrested; the dead man's boss declares himself a prime suspect. Meanwhile, a woman?possibly the murder victim's wife?is found shot to death. The one person who may understand what's happening, a wheelchair-bound PI, vanishes. Faced with these puzzles, Beaumont also confronts personal problems: his ex-wife is dying of cancer; his sometime partner remains jealous of Beau's independent wealth; and a social worker seems to be trumping up charges of child abuse against him. Juggling these elements with her usual sure hand, Jance also controls a supporting cast that ranges from diabolical to dotty. The big finish, when Beaumont and his unlikely allies battle the killer, by itself deserves a movie sale.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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First Sentence
I was showered, dressed, and had rousted the girls out of bed for breakfast when the telephone rang at eight-ten the next morning. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
I was showered, dressed, and had rousted the girls out of bed for breakfast when the telephone rang at eight-ten the next morning. Read the first page
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Most helpful customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Fair to Middling Mystery,
By
This review is from: Name Withheld: A J.P. Beaumont Mystery (Mass Market Paperback)
Buried in all of J.P. Beaumont's personal problems in this novel is a halfway decent mystery. Between problems with his family, a child-services investigation, the insufferable Paul Kramer, his superiors in the Seattle P.D. (who seem to have forgotten that Detective Beaumont is a top-notch investigator), rush hour traffic, and the siren song of a MacNaughton's bottle, J.A. Jance somehow manages to shoehorn a triple murder into Beau's life. What any of it has to do with the blood-dripping icicle on the cover is beyond me.Other reviewers here at Amazon have commented on how overcrowded the book is with Beau's personal problems, and they're right. Either the family crisis or the child-services subplots could have been eliminated and the story would be stronger for it. Either would have sufficed to add depth to Beau's character, but the two of them together is overkill. With all the extra-vocational content in the book, we are left with quite a few loose ends; very little of Kramer & Arnold's side of the investigation makes it into the story, and Beau changes objectives suddenly without having time to go back and follow up on earlier leads. It goes without saying that "detective" Paul Kramer is going to cause problems, but for Sergeant Watkins and Captain Powell to heap on the grief makes little sense (good natured ribbing about Beau's transsexual fan club would have been appropriate; they should have at least heard his side of the story before climbing down his throat); it would be one thing if Beau was an underperformer, but the unceasing gruff boss shtick made no sense. One thing that Jance does do well in the book is convey a sense of how different police work is from what's shown on TV (how different it really is from the book's presentation is another question). From needing evidence ahead of getting an arrest warrant to ballistics and DMV registration checks, Beau does a good job of doing the routine business of police work. If he could learn to do periodic "saves" of his police reports on his laptop, his life would be significantly happier (okay, not in a week with as many problems as this story presents, but on a less-hectic week it'd help a lot). Beau manages to do a lot of sitting and listening in this book, which isn't very exciting - even with handguns falling out of purses. If that translates into "boring" for you, then this may not be among your favorite novels. All in all, I liked this book. It had a little bit of everything, with a bit much of only a few things. Even with all the sitting and talking I found it a quick read. Your mileage may vary, but as far as the book's conclusion is concerned, getting there was half the fun.
2.0 out of 5 stars
Not worth the time.,
By A Customer
This review is from: Name Withheld: A J.P. Beaumont Mystery (Mass Market Paperback)
I started reading this book on a camp trip, and only finished it because it was the only book I had. The author confuses the plot line by the introductions of too many characters, still adding them 2/3rds of the way through. Also, there are 2 plot lines of the detective's personel life which have nothing to do with the main story, with one of the plot lines being totally unbelievable. I don't recommend it.Don Stevens
4.0 out of 5 stars
Pretty good crime drama - check it out,
By Paul Skinner (Manassas, Virginia United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Name Withheld: A J.P. Beaumont Mystery (Mass Market Paperback)
If you are like me, wondering why no modern authors can resist sprinkling in many gratuitus curse words like so many R-rated movies, then maybe you should try this one. The leading character, Detective J. P. Beaumont is a flawed hero with real human qualities. His life is in turmoil as he juggles the evolving multiple homicide with a number of side issues. I wonder how he could sleep. Most of the book is fairly believable. However, I could not get into the Grace Highsmith character, and her performance at the end was certainly "over the top." In the end, Beaumont wraps up the complicated story and the remnants of his personal life, leaving the reader satisfied.
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