Name Withheld: A J.P. Beaumont Mystery [Large Print] [Hardcover]

Judith A. Jance (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 2001

A J.P. Beaumont Mystery

Seattle police homicide detective J.P. Beaumont is babysitting his best friend's daughters on a sober New Year's Day when he is called to investigate a body floating in nearby Elliott Bay. The case draws him into the cutting-edge world of biotechnology, where business as usual means personal betrayals and selling trade secrets with ruthless efficiency. The more Beau discovers about the corpse, the more he's convinced that justice has already been served. Amid an exasperating, eccentric cast of characters including an ex-wife who is battling cancer, an overeager social worker who is trying to prove he's a pedophile and a partner who resents his inherited wealth, Beau struggles to find a killer he really doesn't want to find.

"Lean forward, grab on, and ride for adventure." (Library Journal)

--This text refers to the Audio Cassette edition.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Long before she started her hot new series about Arizona sheriff Joanna Brady, J. A. Jance was already one of the stalwarts of the police procedural genre because of her books about Seattle homicide detective J. P. Beaumont. Like the Brady novels, the Beaumont books are a perfect balance of the personal and the professional--placing the main characters in human contexts without making them seem cute or trite. The latest Beaumont, just out in paperback, is one of the best in the series: Beau wrestles at home with his own dying ex-wife and the vindictive former spouse of his best friend, while his office time is spent trying to discover who murdered a very nasty biotech executive. Previous Beaumont books in paperback include: Dismissed With Prejudice, Failure to Appear, Improbable Cause, Lying in Wait, Minor in Possession, Until Proven Guilty, Without Due Process. --This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.

From Publishers Weekly

Investigating the shooting death of a man whose corpse is found in Elliott Bay, Seattle homicide detective J.P. Beaumont, seen last in Lying in Wait, turns up an excess of suspects. Nobody grieves when the victim is identified. An executive at biotechnology start-up company, he had been involved in everything from corporate power grabs to rape. The rape victim's aunt, a local antiques dealer, confesses and demands to be arrested; the dead man's boss declares himself a prime suspect. Meanwhile, a woman?possibly the murder victim's wife?is found shot to death. The one person who may understand what's happening, a wheelchair-bound PI, vanishes. Faced with these puzzles, Beaumont also confronts personal problems: his ex-wife is dying of cancer; his sometime partner remains jealous of Beau's independent wealth; and a social worker seems to be trumping up charges of child abuse against him. Juggling these elements with her usual sure hand, Jance also controls a supporting cast that ranges from diabolical to dotty. The big finish, when Beaumont and his unlikely allies battle the killer, by itself deserves a movie sale.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Thomas T Beeler (June 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1574903578
• ISBN-13: 978-1574903577
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.7 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #239,378 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

J.A. Jance is the top 10 New York Times bestselling author of the Joanna Brady series; the J. P. Beaumont series; three interrelated thrillers featuring the Walker family; and Edge of Evil, the first in a series featuring Ali Reynolds. Born in South Dakota and brought up in Bisbee, Arizona, Jance lives with her husband in Seattle, Washington, and Tucson, Arizona.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A kinder, gentler Beaumont, July 20, 2000

By 

Karen Potts (Lake Jackson, Texas) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Name Withheld: A J.P. Beaumont Mystery (Mass Market Paperback)

As this series progresses, Detective J.P. Beaumont shows his human side more and more. As the book begins, Beau is babysitting his former partner Ron Peters' daughters (on New Year's Eve, no less.) In the course of the book he is saddened by the impending death of his ex-wife, and has some nice moments with her second husband. He also sheds tears over the death of one of the book's central characters. There are no tears shed over the intial murder in the book--that of Donald Wolf, a biotech corporation executive. He is a womanizer, a rapist, and all around bad guy. The identity of the murderer seems obvious at first, but Jance manages to create new possibilities as the book progresses. Unlike her previous book, Lying in Wait, Jance ties up the loose ends and provides an unusual and strangely satifying end. If this is ever made into a movie, Katherine Hepburn should play Grace Highsmith.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fair to Middling Mystery, April 6, 2004

By 

C. T. Mikesell (near Dallas, Texas) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Name Withheld: A J.P. Beaumont Mystery (Mass Market Paperback)

Buried in all of J.P. Beaumont's personal problems in this novel is a halfway decent mystery. Between problems with his family, a child-services investigation, the insufferable Paul Kramer, his superiors in the Seattle P.D. (who seem to have forgotten that Detective Beaumont is a top-notch investigator), rush hour traffic, and the siren song of a MacNaughton's bottle, J.A. Jance somehow manages to shoehorn a triple murder into Beau's life. What any of it has to do with the blood-dripping icicle on the cover is beyond me.

Other reviewers here at Amazon have commented on how overcrowded the book is with Beau's personal problems, and they're right. Either the family crisis or the child-services subplots could have been eliminated and the story would be stronger for it. Either would have sufficed to add depth to Beau's character, but the two of them together is overkill. With all the extra-vocational content in the book, we are left with quite a few loose ends; very little of Kramer & Arnold's side of the investigation makes it into the story, and Beau changes objectives suddenly without having time to go back and follow up on earlier leads.

It goes without saying that "detective" Paul Kramer is going to cause problems, but for Sergeant Watkins and Captain Powell to heap on the grief makes little sense (good natured ribbing about Beau's transsexual fan club would have been appropriate; they should have at least heard his side of the story before climbing down his throat); it would be one thing if Beau was an underperformer, but the unceasing gruff boss shtick made no sense.

One thing that Jance does do well in the book is convey a sense of how different police work is from what's shown on TV (how different it really is from the book's presentation is another question). From needing evidence ahead of getting an arrest warrant to ballistics and DMV registration checks, Beau does a good job of doing the routine business of police work. If he could learn to do periodic "saves" of his police reports on his laptop, his life would be significantly happier (okay, not in a week with as many problems as this story presents, but on a less-hectic week it'd help a lot). Beau manages to do a lot of sitting and listening in this book, which isn't very exciting - even with handguns falling out of purses. If that translates into "boring" for you, then this may not be among your favorite novels.

All in all, I liked this book. It had a little bit of everything, with a bit much of only a few things. Even with all the sitting and talking I found it a quick read. Your mileage may vary, but as far as the book's conclusion is concerned, getting there was half the fun.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Beau in the Big City, April 11, 2006

By 

Kara J. Jorges "Avid Reader" (Minneapolis) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Name Withheld: A J.P. Beaumont Mystery (Mass Market Paperback)

While I'm a big Joanna Brady fan, I haven't quite been able to feel the same way about her other favorite protagonist, JP Beaumont. Beau, though a likeable guy, just doesn't ring true as a man, like he doesn't quite fit in his skin. His reactions to things seem too passive to be male, or maybe it's the way he sees women. JP Beaumont has a lot of fans, though, so obviously not everyone agrees with me on that.

Beau, an independently wealthy, high-rise-dwelling, Porsche-driving Seattle homicide cop, draws a floater one day when he's babysitting for a friend. The corpse is quickly identified as biotech executive Don Wolf, a man whose demise no one seems to lament. When Beau visits Designer Genes International, Wolf's employer, to get a positive ID, the company's CEO surprises him by announcing he will be the prime suspect, as he and Wolf were bitter enemies. It seems, however, that at least one other suspect exists, lovely young Latty Gibson, who was caught on tape being raped by Don Wolf in his office. Beau gets stonewalled in his attempts to talk to the young woman by her great aunt, an old money paragon who rather unconvincingly confesses to the murder.

The investigation gets even more interesting when Don Wolf's wife Lizbeth and a private investigator who had been digging into his past both turn up dead. Beau pursues the Latty Gibson angle while his personal nemesis looks into the biotech company that employed Wolf. Meanwhile, a couple of California cops do a little digging of their own, adding a few more facets and suspects to the mystery.

Typical of Jance, a mishmash of clues are floating around out there, and they all start coming together when suddenly, in a flash, that one vital clue comes to light. The meandering, distracted pace suddenly gets focused and goes into overdrive into the climax. The ending is a trifle too sentimental for my taste, but some people might find it moving.

In all, this was a pretty decent mystery, though it took a little while to engage my interest, as the story seems more about Beau's personal issues than a murder investigation. That's another one of Jance's trademarks, though. I'm sure this book won't disappoint JP Beaumont fans, and it wouldn't be a bad vehicle for drawing in a few new ones, either.