Dance of the Bones by J.A. Jance

First Line: Amos Warren walked with his shoulders stooped and with his eyes and mind focused on the uneven ground beneath his feet.

Brandon Walker and The Last Chance have a tough assignment: to take another look at the investigation, trial, and conviction of John Lassiter. Years ago Walker arrested Lassiter for the murder of prospector Amos Warren. A plea deal is on the table for Lassiter that would release him from prison with time served. Lassiter has always maintained his innocence, and instead of accepting the deal, he's demanding Walker take another, deeper, look. 

When Walker discovers that there are connections between Lassiter's case and an unsolved one in Seattle, he asks J.P. Beaumont for help. The case gets red hot when two boys from the reservation go missing. Walker and Beaumont are going to have to work fast to keep the two youngsters alive.

As a rule I love J.A. Jance's books, but Dance of the Bones is not one of her best-- and J.P. Beaumont fans will be disappointed, since he plays a crucial (but very small) role.

Jance's Walker family series set in the Tucson, Arizona area have always used many legends of the Tohono O'odham people. Normally I enjoy reading them, but in this case they kept dragging me out of the story-- even if they did pertain to two of my favorite characters, Gabe Ortiz and Lani Walker-Pardee. Speaking of characters, the bad guy needed  to be more hands-on. Always having minions doing the dirty work sapped the killer's evil mojo. Instead of fear or anxiety, I felt irritation.

With so many interconnected loops of plot, reading Dance of the Bones was like stepping in the middle of a nest of rattlesnakes. Lots of distraction, occasional confusion, and a feeling that the story didn't live up to the often beautiful way Jance uses the English language.
   

Dance of the Bones by J.A. Jance

ISBN: 9780062297662

William Morrow © 2015

Hardcover, 368 pages

Police Procedural, #5 Walker Family mystery

Rating: B

Source: Purchased from Book Outlet 


 

Fire and Ice by J.A. Jance

Title: Fire and Ice, a Beaumont and Brady Novel
Author: J.A. Jance
ISBN: 9780061239229, William Morrow, 2009
Genre: Police Procedural
Rating: A

First Line: Ken Leggett wasn't what you could call a warm and fuzzy guy.

Seattle investigator J.P. Beaumont is working a series of murders in western Washington in which six young women have been wrapped in tarps, doused with gasoline, and set on fire. At the same time, two thousand miles away in the Arizona desert, Cochise County sheriff Joanna Brady is investigating the homicide of a caretaker of an ATV park. A breakthrough in Beaumont's case leads him right to Cochise County, and for the second time (after 2002's Partner in Crime) these two will be working together.

I've read the first two or three books of Jance's Beaumont series and have to admit that I never took to J.P. On the other hand, when I picked up the first book of the Joanna Brady series, it was love at first sight. When Jance first put her two crime fighters together, I was wondering how it would work out. I should've known that with two professionals like J.P. and Joanna (and a consummate writer like Jance), it would go well. Fire and Ice is even better than Partner in Crime.

Until the end of the book, J.P. and Joanna stay in their own jurisdictions to work their cases, and both characters are more comfortable that way. It's interesting to see how the two cases eventually link together.

J.P. seems to have made quite a few changes in his life; so much so that I might just try reading about him again. Joanna's life is the usual hectic blur of being sheriff in a county that's larger than some states, of being the wife of a writer who has to go on book tours, of being the mother of an infant and a teenager. J.P. has always been a bit of a loner. Joanna Brady is surrounded by family and friends and co-workers, many of whom have their own story lines woven seamlessly into the narrative.

In both series, Jance has created characters that, after a few books, can easily feel like members of your own family. Jance's plots are always interesting and flow smoothly, and her settings are close to perfection. Fire and Ice is yet another winner for J.A. Jance. When she stops writing books, I think I'll cry.