Partner in Crime

The authors two series sleuths finally meet when J. P. Beaumont, of Washington's Special Homicide Investigation Team, comes to Sheriff Joanna Brady's Cochise County, Arizona, to investigate the murder of a local artist. Cotter Smith narrates J. P.'s first-person chapters and Debra Monk Joanna's third-person chapters. Both narrators are superb: Smith captures J.P.'s world-weary directness; his deep voiced, expressive narration conveys his reactions to being in the home of his late ex-wife. Monk is just as skilled, with a voice that shows its complexities as she expresses Joanna's toughness, her struggles to deal with her job, and the joy and weariness that her life brings her in turn. The meetings of both detectives and narrators are ideal pairings. M.A.M. (c) AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine

July 22, 2002
In this chilling novel, the prolific Nance successfully brings together her dyspeptic Seattle homicide detective J.P. Beaumont (Birds of Prey, etc.) and Cochise County, Ariz., Sheriff Joanna Brady (Paradise Lost, etc.). When artist Rochelle Baxter is murdered in Bisbee, Ariz., Brady's department is stunned that Baxter's next of kin is not a person but the Washington State Attorney General's Office. Baxter was Latisha Wall, an industrial whistle-blower in a Washington witness protection program pending her testimony at an important trial. Beaumont, now an investigator for the AG, is sent to Arizona to determine if Wall's cover was blown. The enraged Brady interprets his arrival as personal criticism; Beaumont feels uncomfortable with her resentment and with being in the hometown of his second wife, the serial killer Anne Rowland Corley. After a second murder, the two investigators develop mutual respect and even a physical attraction. The convoluted plot builds to a surprising solution, though the floundering romance ultimately comes off as forced. The most frightening feature is the cause of death—sodium azide, an odorless, tasteless, unregulated chemical used in automobile air bags. Nance highlights the differences between her two protagonists by alternating Beaumont's first-person narration (despite her Seattle sleuth's dislike of Arizona's desolate scenery, the author describes it beautifully) with Brady's third-person chapters, which show how Brady, her staff and family handle pressure. (Aug. 6)Forecast:The juxtaposition of the author's two series sleuths, plus the potential controversy over the sodium azide issue, should generate extra sales.

April 15, 2002
Jance is famed for two series, one featuring big-city detective J.P. Beaumont and the other small-town Arizona sheriff Joanna Brady. Here, in a case involving the murder of an out-of-state attorney on Brady's turf, the two meet explosively.

Copyright 2002 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.