I was not impressed with Without Due Process. The story veers off on the wrong path and just seemed to keep going sideways.
J. P. Beaumont, intrepid Seattle homicide detective, gets drawn into mystery revolving around Benjamin Gentle Ben
Weston, an officer in the gang division. After a call to the department threatening the lives of every police officer, Ben Weston and almost his entire family are found slaughtered in their south Seattle home. But evidence surfaces showing that Weston has been co-signing loans for gang-bangers, which is a no-no for squeaky-clean Seattle officers. Is it fraud of some sort? Did gangs co-opt Weston? Are there more cops involved, as evidenced by the lack of usable evidence at the scene? Who?
This one is mostly wrong in plotting. First off, why would bad guys jump straight from small time fraud to murder? When the killers are revealed, the motivation is that lacking. In order to keep from getting discovered at a small crime, they risk the death penalty in a major way. Killing the entire family seemed like huge overkill as well.
Then come up a huge WTF moment. All the major gangs in Seattle call a truce and cooperate with the police to solve the crime, because they don’t want to look bad to their neighbors. I rolled my eyes multiple times.
Further evidence is that someone looked at all of Ben Weston’s computer files at work, after he died. So there are likely to be other police officers on the take besides Weston. But here’s the part that doesn’t make sense. Weston’s boss has no idea what he’s been working on for nine months, does not know what’s in the files, and has no way to get into the files. I find that really really hard to believe.
The holes were just too big and too numerous.
Title: Without Due Process
Author: J. A. Jance
Series: J. P. Beaumont; 10
Imprint / publisher: Avon / Hearst
Format: Mass market paperback
Length: 302 p.
Publication date: October 1993
ISBN-10: 0-380-75837-7
Subject: Beaumont, J. P. (Fictitious character) — Fiction
Subject: Police — Washington (State) — Seattle — Fiction
Subject: Seattle (Wash.) — Fiction
LC classification: PS3560.A44 W5 1992
