Review by Booklist Review
It's been several years since Jance gave Seattle PI J. P. Beaumont center stage (Justice Denied, 2007), although he was paired with another of her series protagonists, Joanna Brady, in Fire and Ice (2009). Beau (along with wife Mel, his partner on Washington's Special Homicide Investigation Team) is still the go-to guy whenever the attorney general has a politically sensitive case. When Governor Marsha Longmire, a high-school classmate of Beau's, finds a snuff film on her teenage stepgrandson's cell phone, Beau and Mel are asked to investigate; the case becomes more urgent when the boy commits suicide in his bedroom in the governor's mansion. As Beau recalls bein. uncoo. to Longmire'. coo. in high school, he and Mel find people of privilege acting as if they're above the law. Dogged police work, from skilled hacking to sifting through garbage, leads to a satisfying solution in Beau's nineteenth outing. There's not a lot of suspense here, but the detecting is solid, and fans will enjoy reconnecting with Beau, now an aging warhorse with bad knees.--Leber, Michel. Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
In Jance's solid if a tad sentimental 20th J.P. Beamont novel (after Fire and Ice), the creaky-kneed Seattle detective and his third wife, Mel, both working for the Washington attorney general's unfortunately acronymed Special Homicide Investigation Team, have to probe a potentially explosive scandal: shortly after the governor's stepgrandson's cellphone was found to contain a snuff film, the troubled teen hanged himself in the governor's mansion. As Beau and Mel carry on their finely tuned good cop-bad cop routines and employ the conveniently accessible talents of techie associates, Beau counterpoints his dogged pursuit of "arrogant jerks," whose well-heeled parents extricate them from all scrapes, with his gradual bittersweet discovery of the father who died before his birth. Jance's denunciation of adolescent bullying and adult hypocrisy rings true, a testimony to the fundamental decency of cops like Beau and Mel who walk the mean streets the rest of their society would rather not explore except in fiction. 8-city author tour. (July) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Twoinvestigators for the Washington State Attorney General's Special Homicide Investigation Team are called upon to investigate a heinous crime with political connections.Upon their arrival in Olympia, J.P. Beaumont and his wife Mel Soames are shown a snuff film that's been sent to the cell phone of Josh, the grandson of Governor Longmire's second husband. After Josh's mother died of a drug overdose, he moved into the governor's mansion. He denies knowing anything about the film or the identity of the young woman. J.P., who believes him, sends Josh's computer and phone to a computer expert to see what he can tell. His information becomes even more important when Josh commits suicide. The body of the girl on the film is found floating in a pond, but it's clear that she was strangled after the first film was made. J.P. and Mel trace her to Janie's House, a community center for poor and troubled teens, where they discover a connection to Josh's suicide. He was being cyber-bullied from a computer available to anyone at Janie's House, a place frequented by both the dead girl and the governor's daughters, who do community service there as tutors. The difficulty of the case is matched by something J.P. has just learned about his own background that will change his life.The prolific Jance (Fire and Ice, 2009, etc.) again tells a story that will keep her readers wanting more.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
