Breach of Duty

J. A. Jance

7/25/2005

J.P. Beaumont, Beau, is a homicide detective on the Seattle police force. Things are quiet in Seattle when his grandmother wants him to join her scattering his grandfather's ashes. When he returns a week later, the force is busy. He and his new partner, Sue Danielson, have two cases to solve. One had seemed an accidental death in a house fire when he left. When he returns, they had discovered the woman had a large amount of cash hidden and her bed had been soaked in accelerants when the cigarette fell on the mattress.

The other involved a vampire and ghoul type role playing game. Human bones were found during their game in a city park. Beau and Sue need to discover who was the person before he or she became bones and why the bones were in the park.

A University of Washington professor visits Beau at the office. Her father believes the bones belonged to a Native American shaman who had been dead for ten years. She wants to warn Beau of the danger to any person who handles the bones. There is a curse on the bones of a shaman that passes on when they are disturbed and abused. Beau would like to ignore her warnings, but strange things have happened to a couple of the people who first handled the bones... Sue had picked them up at the park to send them to the medical examiner.

Jance has intertwined two unusual mysteries with the ongoing private story of Beau's life. Both take some unusual and unexpected twists and turns, keeping the reader thrown off by the different red herrings. I stayed right with this book, trying to keep up with what was happening. Of course I didn't, and enjoyed the ride until the end. And by the end, my emotions were invested and thrown off kilter.

You can find more about this book at .

Until Proven Guilty
Injustice For All
Trial by Fury
Taking the Fifth
Improbable Cause
A More Perfect Union
Dismissed With Prejudice
Minor in Possession
Payment in Kind
Without Due Process
Failure to Appear
Lying in Wait
Name Withheld
Breach of Duty
Birds of Prey
Partner in Crime
Long Time Gone
Justice Denied