Partner in crime

Judith A. Jance

Book - 2002

Saved in:

1st Floor Show me where

MYSTERY/Jance, Judith A.
1 / 1 copies available
Location Call Number   Status
1st Floor MYSTERY/Jance, Judith A. Checked In
Subjects
Published
New York : William Morrow c2002.
Language
English
Main Author
Judith A. Jance (-)
Edition
1st ed
Physical Description
370 p.
ISBN
9780061961717
9780380977307
9780380804702
Contents unavailable.
Review by Booklist Review

It's risky to bring characters from different series together, but in the tradition of Tony Hillerman, that's just what Jance does in her latest adventure, which teams J. P. Beaumont from the Washington State Attorney General's Office with Cochise County Sheriff Joanna Brady. When a murder victim turns out to be part of a Federal Witness Protection Program in Joanna's jurisdiction, Beaumont is sent down to oversee the investigation. Predictably, that puts Joanna's nose out of joint, until she realizes that J. P. isn't so bad to have on her side. By wrap-up time, the two seem destined to cross paths again. A clever twist at the end notwithstanding, the plot isn't up to Jance's usual standard, but there's enough tantalizing background about each cop to invite new readers to take a look at the respective detective series. Jance also does a bit of consciousness raising here, working in information about a horrifying chemical that is currently both unregulated and accessible. Let's hope the story doesn't give away too much! --Stephanie Zvirin

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

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.(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review

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. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review

After fifteen J.P. Beaumont mysteries (Devil's Claw, 2000, etc.) and nine Joanna Bradys (Paradise Lost, 2001, etc.), it's clearly time for a Beaumont-Brady, though the joint case isn't terribly challenging to either sleuth. The tale begins in Cochise County, Arizona, Sheriff Brady's turf, when talented young artist Rochelle Baxter is found dead the night before her first-ever one-woman show. Homicide? Yes, indeed, complicated by the fact that there never was a Rochelle Baxter. The late headliner was actually Latisha Wall, who'd been stashed away in a witness protection program pending a court appearance in behalf of the state of Washington. Enter former Seattle homicide cop Beaumont, currently a special investigator for Washington's bristling attorney general, a boss who's hopping-mad over the loss of his star witness. Back when she answered to Latisha, the ex-marine painter had worked for a private prison corporation-until she blew the whistle on her crooked higher-ups. Was it these self-same lowlifes who did for Latisha, or was it a disappointed lover whose fingerprints have turned up in suspicious proximity to her body? Beau's been dispatched because his big-city masters don't trust "some little wet-behind-the-ears cowgirl" to conduct a proper investigation. Item: Beau and Joanne don't like each other. Item: Beau and Joanne operate at cross-purposes. Item: Beau and Joanne have an ah-ha moment after which they perceive each other's true worth and crack the case. Soft-boiled stuff, but then that's the way the target audience likes its eggs.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Partner in Crime Chapter One As Sheriff Joanna Brady drove through the last thicket of mesquite, the house at High Lonesome Ranch lay dark and still under a rising moon. Usually her daughter Jenny's two dogs--Sadie, a bluetick hound, and Tigger, a half golden retriever/half pit-bull mutt--would have bounded through the undergrowth to meet her. This time, Joanna surmised, they had chosen to accompany Butch on his appointment with the contractor at the site of the new house they were planning to build a mile or so away. Butch had bugged out of St. Dominick's immediately after the service, while he and Joanna waited for the sanctuary to empty. "I'll stay if you want," he had whispered. "But I really need to go." "Right," she had told him. "You do what you have to. I'll be fine." "I'll stop by the house and do the chores first," he said. "Don't worry about that." Joanna had simply nodded. "Thanks," she said. By then Yolanda Ortiz Cañedo's grieving husband, her two young sons, her parents, brothers and sister were walking out of the church through two lines of saluting officers made up of both police and fire department personnel. Joanna could barely stand to watch. It was all too familiar, too close to her own experience. As her green eyes filled with tears, Joanna glanced away, only to catch sight of the prisoners. That forlorn group--eleven county prisoners, freshly barbered and dressed in civilian clothes--stood in respectful silence, under the watchful eyes of two jail guards and Ted Chapman, the executive director of the Cochise County Jail Ministry. Ted had come to Joanna's office the day after the young jail matron had died of cervical cancer at a hospice facility in Tucson. "Some of the inmates would like to go to the services," Chapman had said. "Yolanda Cañedo did a lot of good around here. She really cared about the guys she worked with, and it showed. She helped me get the jail literacy program going, and she came in during off-hours to give individual help to prisoners who were going after GEDs. Some of the people she helped--inmates who have already been released--will be there on their own, but the ones who are still in lockup wanted me to ask if they could go, too. The newer prisoners, the ones who came in after Yolanda got sick, aren't included, of course. They have no idea who she was or what she did." "What about security?" Sheriff Brady had asked. "Who's going to stand guard?" "I already have two volunteers who will come in on their day off," Chapman answered. "You have my word of honor, along with that of the prisoners, that there won't be any trouble." Joanna thought about how good some of the jail inmates' words of honor might be. But then she also had to consider the notebook full of greetings--handmade by jail inmates--that the Reverend Chapman had brought to Yolanda and her family as the young woman had lain gravely ill in the Intensive Care Unit at University Medical Center in Tucson. Sheriff Brady had been touched by the heartfelt sincerity in all those clumsily pasted-together cards. Several of them had been made by men able to sign their own names at the bottom of a greeting card for the very first time. Other cards had names printed by someone else under scrawled Xs. Their good wishes had seemed genuine enough back then. Now, so did the Reverend Chapman's somewhat unorthodox request. "How many inmates are we talking about?" Joanna had asked. "Fourteen." "Any of them high-risk?" "I don't think so." "Give me the list," Joanna had conceded at last. "I'm not making any promises, but I'll run the proposition by the jail commander and see what he has to say." In the end, eleven of the proposed inmates had been allowed to attend the service. in his eulogy, Father Morris had spoken of Yolanda Cañedo as a remarkable young woman. Certainly the presence of that solemn collection of inmates bore witness to that. And, as far as Joanna could tell, the prisoners' behavior had been nothing short of exemplary. They stood now in a single straight row. With feet splayed apart and hands clasped behind their backs, they might have been a troop of soldiers standing at ease. Seeing them there, dignified and silent in the warm afternoon sun, Joanna was glad she had vetoed the jail commander's suggestion that they attend the funeral wearing handcuffs and shackles. Chief Deputy Frank Montoya came up behind her then. "Hey, boss," he whispered in her car. "They're putting the casket into the hearse. Since we're supposed to be directly behind the family cars, we'd better mount up." Nodding, Joanna left the inmates to the care of the two guards and Ted Chapman and walked back toward Frank's waiting Crown Victoria. Even in heels, the five-foot-four sheriff felt dwarfed as she made her way through the crush of uniformed officers. A light breeze riffled her short red hair. "Looks like the members of Reverend Chapman's flock are behaving themselves." her chief deputy observed, as he started the Civvie's engine. "So far so good," Joanna agreed. "But they're not coming to the cemetery?" Joanna shook her head. "No. Having them at the church is one thing, but going to the cemetery is something else. If there's any confusion, I was afraid one or more of them might slip away." "You've got that right," Frank agreed. "We don't need to give your friend Ken Junior anything else to piss and moan about." "Since when does he need a reason?" Joanna returned. Ken junior, otherwise known as Deputy Kenneth Galloway, was Sheriff Brady's current problem child. He was the nephew and namesake of another Deputy... Partner in Crime . Copyright © by J. Jance. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold. Excerpted from Partner in Crime by J. A. Jance All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.