Yup, still re-reading J. A. Jance crime fiction. The seventh in the J. P. Beaumont series has Beaumont investigating an apparent suicide by seppuku. Owner of a small high tech company dies with a very rare long-lost samurai sword by his side and his entrails hanging out through a stab wound in his gut. The medical examiner determines it was a blow to the head that killed the man though.
Besides the crime plot, Jance works two big things into the story. First is the treatment and life of the Japanese American community in and around Seattle during and after World War II. That was something that was under-covered in my American history classes both in high school and college. I’ve read about it before now, of course, and I even had friends in college whose parents had been interned. For some reason the Supreme Court declared that jailing people based on their Japanese heritage was perfectly legal. Completely shameful, and unlike Dred Scott, I don’t believe that decision has ever been reversed in subsequent Supreme Court decisions.
The second item in the story background is Beaumont’s drinking. Jance started making an issue of it in the previous book, A More Perfect Union. This book really lays it on thick. The book opens with Beaumont waking up from a drunken blackout with a broken hand that he doesn’t remember. He also forgets a planned meeting, which I don’t recall the story ever rescheduling. His doctor and his lawyer both hammer him on his drinking. By the end of the book, he’s agreed to go into treatment. While well-intentioned, I thought Jance’s treatment of the subject to be unrealistic. The book has the first confrontation with Beaumont about him quitting, and within three days he’s agreed to treatment. My experience is that people fight sobering up much harder than that. (To be fair, Jance has Beaumont backsliding in future books, and that’s pretty spot-on normal.)
But to the crime… with two small exceptions Jance again does a good job at avoiding things that annoy me. The criminal plot is pretty simple. It looks somewhat complicated at first, but that’s because Beaumont doesn’t know what happened, and he learns the facts piecemeal. In real life, criminals rarely have elaborate plans. Or at least they don’t have elaborate plans that work. The more pieces in a plan, the more points at which it can fail. A small high tech company that’s failing, but possibly has an unknown valuable product that could turn things around. Several people could want it, and they might be unscrupulous. Simple. No coincidences required.
The two parts that bothered me? One is a witness who, for no satisfactory reason, bails on Beaumont in the middle of an interview. Walks off and disappears. He answers questions. He has nothing to hide. But the reason later offered for him leaving just doesn’t make sense. Along the lines of I needed to help a person, right then
kind of thing. Uhm, why?
The other is who the killers turn out to be and why they are involved. The Mafia. No, that isn’t really a spoiler; the Mafia involvement is revealed fairly early on. What’s in question is just why they are involved. Too clichéd of a reason. It feels like a stereotype of the Mafia that might be held by a pair of suburban parents. In other words, gleaned from the movies. Perhaps that’s really how the mob works, but it doesn’t feel right. Especially for Seattle, which is hardly a center for Italian organized crime.
One thing I should also mention is the settings. Unlike some other of the regional
crime fiction writers, Jance doesn’t just use a generic Seattle or Pacific Northwest. The hotel in Moscow, Idaho is really called the University Inn and it’s bar is really called Chaser’s (or at least was until 1998 when I moved away). There really is a green windowed high rise at 1201 Third Avenue in Seattle. There really is a nifty little park called Waterfall park. Jance takes some creative license with locations, but not a lot. So it’s quite the pleasure to read for a local.
Other blogged reviews:
Title: Dismissed with Prejudice
Author: J. A. Jance
Series: J. P. Beaumont; 7
Imprint / publisher: Avon / Hearst
Format: Mass market paperback
Length: 314 p.
Publication date: June 1989
ISBN-10: 0-380-75547-5
Subject: Beaumont, J.P. (Fictitious character) — Fiction
Subject: Police — Washington (State) — Seattle — Fiction
Subject: Seattle (Wash.) — Fiction
