Customer Reviews

Name Withheld: A J.P. Beaumont Mystery

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

Three murders, work problems, baby sitting, child services, ex-wife dying, and alcohol contribute too many threads for a fast paced mystery. But J.A. Jance manages to pull all the threads together to give NAME WITHHELD and J.P. Beaumont a fighting chance.

J.P. steps out of his hard-boiled persona to figure as a softer person who has some fine moments with his ex-wife's new husband. Very real portrayal of a situation faced by individuals who have multiple marriages and children involved.

Good read in a strong series.

Nash Black, HAINTS and WRITING AS A SMALL BUSINESS

The first Beaumont mystery I've read & I enjoyed it. The author develops her characters & story line very directly. Ms. Jance doesn't throw a lot of useless fluff into her work. Her descriptions are not repetitious & the novel moves along at a good fast pace. It's well worth reading. Beaumont is a like-able lead character

Great book by a great author. I love her writing and anyone buying her books needs to look at her website and read the books in order.

I love book series. JA Jance keeps you interested in J.P. Beaumont as a kind of rogue cop. Every book brings a surprising plot with a surprise ending. I'd recommend this to anyone who can take the suspense, because there is always a thriller cliffhanger with lots of adventure and attitude.

This book is a small cut above the average mystery/thriller, but its characters express more human emotion than normal, without waxing dramatic. Like a 1980s Hollywood movie, the plot progresses by sandwiching the character between the dumbly destructive legal process and the intelligently destructive evil of a killer covering his tracks, but in the middle, J.P. Beaumont is trying to enjoy life by doing what he finds fulfilling, namely, tracking down killers. The plot isn't far from believable, and the text, while plain, is artfully restrained, but it is the human element that makes this book stand above its otherwise competitive contemporaries.

Name Withheld, is the third Jance book I have read and while Trial by Fury was by the best so far, this book was excellent in its own right. It makes JP Beaumont seem very real and likable. The plot twists and turns make you keep reading and overall it makes me want to go to the bookstore and grab another Jance book just to see what Beaumont will be up to next.

I've read every J.A. Jance book, but this most recent one lacked the action, mystery/intrigue, and fun the other books had. This was entertaining, but I still liked her first book the best.