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3.0étoiles sur 5
Native American giver., Aoû 2 2000
Breach of duty is the story of a disillusioned police detective named, J.P. Beaumont, a male detective from a squad in the Seattle Police Department. Beaumont, besides being a little on the shop-worn side, has a problem with authority, mostly in the form of a newly appointed squad commander jumped up from below Beaumont in seniority. Beaumont also has a reputation as a jinx whose partners seem to get killed with alarming regularity. Does a lot of this sound slightly over-used in recent day crime fiction? Jance, in this novel (as well as in this series, no doubt,) undertakes a degree of difficulty that many writers simply shun. She writes a detective series in the first person of a male central character...In the episode titled Breach Of Duty Vance pushes Beaumont through a number of events that have no special intensity, but the plot surrounding two separate investigations and a goodly dose of Native American mumbo jumbo is intriguing enough in itself to allow for continued interest in spite of the lackluster action. The character of the squad commander comes across as woefully one dimensional, This self serving, untalented martinet who badgers Beaumont's every move is a stick figure antagonist created for the purpose of providing conflict...the author, who never gives us a fully developed image at which to aim our righteous indignation. Beaumont's partner is a woman with two young boys at home and her hostile former husband serves as a wild card in the mix...Breach OF Duty is crime drama for the faithful, but not for the seeker of truly powerful fiction. It does however, manage to keep one reading until one finds out who did what to whom and why. In this fundamental requisite of the mystery genre, Vance does not fail the reader. Even if the events are less than eventful in the story, the author provides the mandatory level of intricacy in the weaving of the plot. I found it quite readable, even though the book lacks depth in places and wants for more engaging action. Gary Souza
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