After a pretty good Minor in Possession, I think Jance took a step back with Payment in Kind. There’s a little bit of character development embedded in this super-complicated plot. I’m don’t like it when the crimes depends on all sorts of weird connections. And I also don’t really buy the Paul Kramer character. There are assholes on the job, but even the bosses know who they are and what they are up to.
Now, the set up for the plot isn’t too complicated. School district employee found murdered in the arms of dead school district security guard. Suspicion falls on the husband, Pete Kelsey. Especially when his life starts coming unraveled. Really unraveled. He was a draft dodger living in Canada during the Viet Nam War, or so he seems.
There’s also a huge plot hole that makes the complicated thing unworkable. Pete Kelsey’s past. Contrasting it with that of J. P. Beaumont. Beaumont has purposefully avoided his grandfather, who had thrown out Beaumont’s mother when she became pregnant as a teen. However, in this book Beaumont decides to stop carrying a grudge and look his grandparents up. When he finds them, grandmother has kept up a box of clippings of Beau’s exploits over the decades despite having never met her grandson.
Pete Kelsey on the other hand, has no idea about any of the people in his past. His parents for instance. No clue if they are dead or alive despite them living in small town South Dakota. Or other people in the plot. It’s not that hard to check up on them occasionally. Pete Kelsey has a need to. And yet he doesn’t.
I’m trying to remember if, in any of the series, Beaumont ever just investigates a plain old drug hit or something similar. Most of his cases are less convoluted than this one.
Anyway, I’m not quite as satisfied with Payment in Kind. Even for brain candy it didn’t quite measure up. Unfortunately, telling more than is in this review already would completely spoil the plot, so I can’t really do a proper job of explaining why. But hopefully this is enough.
Title: Payment in Kind
Author: J. A. Jance
Series: J. P. Beaumont; 9
Imprint / publisher: Avon / Hearst
Format: Mass market paperback
Length: 330 p.
Publication date: March 1991
ISBN-10: 0-380-75836-9
