BIBLIOGRAPHIC DETAILS
(Print: (1998) 12/1/1992 ; 9780727843613; Seven House Pub Ltd; 224 pages)
*Audio: 2/19/2008; 9781581161670; Books in Motion; duration 08:27:59 (7 parts); Unabridged.
(Film: No).

SERIES
J. P. Beaumont Book 6

CHARACTERS: (Not comprehensive)
J. P. Beaumont - Seattle PD Detective
Manny Davis - Seattle PD Detective
Paul Kramer - Seattle PD Detective
Mayor Dawson - The Mayor who requests Beaumont’s consulting service
Cassie Young - movie director’s assistant
Samuel Goldfarb - Mayor Dawson’s old roommate / movie director
Woody Carroll - retired Lake Union Drydock employee
Derrick Parker - Celebrity
Merrilee Jackson - Seattle PD Officer
Phil Baxter - Seattle PD Officer

SUMMARY/ EVALUATION:
How I picked it: I still like the series, so this was the next in line.
What it’s about: Beaumont has been assigned to consult on the set of the making of the movie, “Death in Drydock” when “the body” shows up too soon–that would be because it is truly dead. The plot involves a couple of murders with an ironworkers union theme.
What I thought: This was another good episode with an interesting plot.

AUTHOR:
J. A. Jance:
“Jance was born in Watertown, South Dakota,[2] and raised in Bisbee, Arizona (the setting for her Joanna Brady series of novels). Before becoming an author, she worked as a school librarian on a Native American reservation (Tohono O'Odham), and as a teacher and insurance agent.
Jance attended University of Arizona, graduating with a bachelor's degree in education in 1966, then a master's in library science in 1970. In 2000, University of Arizona awarded Jance an honorary doctorate.[3]
In July of 2018, Strand Magazine gave Jance its Lifetime Achievement Award to recognize her contributions to the field of crime fiction.[4]
She lives part of the year in Arizona and part of the year in Seattle.[5] Jance uses her initials for her pen name because a publisher told her that disclosing her gender would be a liability for a book about a male detective. At signings, Jance asks bookstores to donate a percentage of their earnings from her appearances to various causes. Over the past 10 years, she has raised more than $250,000 for charity.” __Wikipedia

NARRATOR:
Gene Engene:
“Gene Engene is an award-winning reader with an astounding catalog of audiobooks to his credit. He is best known as J.P. Beaumont in the J.A. Jance mystery series. Gene is a veteran stage actor, director, and is a retired Professor of Drama at Eastern Washington University. Gene Engene Audiobooks” __ Books in Motion
Gene does an excellent characterization for the protagonist, JP Beaumont, but I have to admit many of the voices he gives the other characters make me cringe and stab at the volume control. They are screechy, loud, and staccato-fast. In this episode the characters who are hard to listen to are Paul Kramer & Samuel Goldfarb.

GENRE:
Fiction; Mystery

LOCATIONS:
Seattle, Washington

TIME FRAME
Contemporary (1998)

SUBJECTS:
Iron workers union, police procedure, crime detection, murder

SAMPLE QUOTATION:
From Chapter One
"You can’t do that, Detective Beaumont," he roared back. "You can’t bring cops in here and order me to clear out my people."
"Watch me," I said. I turned to Woody. "Do it."
He did, quickly and effectively, leaving Sam The Movie Man Goldfarb hopping from foot to foot in total frustration.
"Cassie, can’t you stop this?" he wailed. From bellowing one minute, Goldfarb was reduced to whining the next. "Robert Dawson’s going to hear about this," he continued to me. "I’ll see you fired before the day’s over."
Hizzoner can stick it in his ear, I thought. I said, Be my guest. You do that."
Seattle’s Medic One has some of the best response times in the country. An aid car was the first emergency vehicle to appear on the scene. It rattled noisily over the wooden planks and jerked to a stop. I hurried to meet it and directed the medics to the stairs. "The woman’s up there, I said, pointing. On the wingwall."
"Great," the driver replied, shading his eyes and evaluating the perpendicular wall with its steep wooden staircase. "What’s wrong with her?"
"Fainted probably."
He drove the aid car as close as he could to the bottom of the steps. He and his partner leaped from their vehicle just as a Seattle P.D. squad car pulled up on the dock behind me. Two uniformed officers got out, a man and a woman.
The man was a guy named Phil Baxter. I had seen him around the department before, although I had to check his name tag before I could remember his name. The woman was a young black with the name Jackson pinned to the breast pocket of her blue uniform. She was new to me.
"What’s going on here?" Baxter demanded of no one in particular. "Who’s in charge?"
"Looks like he is," Goldfarb said disgustedly, pointing at me.
I answered with no further prompting. "A body," I told Phil. "Over there. In the water."
Baxter walked to the edge of the dock and looked down. Sheer force of habit made me follow. It was still there, slapping against the wooden piling as the wake of a landing float plane rippled across the lake.
As the body rose and fell, a large decorative brass belt buckle glinted briefly in the sun, just under the water’s surface. There was a design on it of some kind, and some printing as well. I squinted my best middle-aged squint. Try as I might I couldn’t make out the letters.
"Can you read what it says on that buckle?" I asked Baxter.
He too squinted. "Not from here, he answered."
I hadn’t noticed, but his partner, Officer Jackson, had followed us. "It says ‘Ironworker,’ she remarked quietly."
I glanced back at her in some surprise. She was several feet farther away than I was, and she was able to read it when neither Baxter nor I could. "My vision’s twenty-ten," she explained with a smile that made me feel ancient.
For the first time Officer Baxter looked me full in the face. "Why, excuse me, Detective Beaumont. I didn’t recognize you. How’d homicide get here so fast? I was just getting ready to call you guys."
"Go ahead and call," I told him. "I’m not here representing homicide."
"You’re not?"
I didn’t want to go into all the gory details of why I was there. "Trust me on this one," I said. "Call Harbor Patrol and have them send somebody out."
Baxter turned to his partner. "Do that, would you, Merrilee?"
With a nod, Officer Jackson headed back toward the patrol car.
I felt a tap on my shoulder. When I turned, there was Derrick Parker. "Hey, Beau. What’s going on?" he asked tentatively. "Hannah really got an eyeful. She fainted dead away."
"How is she?
"Hyperventilating. She was coming around, but she had a relapse as soon as the medics showed up. Hannah’s got the hots for guys in uniform."
Derrick Parker wasn’t the least bit fond of his female costar. He and I had chummed around together some while he had been in Seattle. We shared similar tastes, although his ran to Glenlivet rather than MacNaughton’s. He seemed to enjoy slumming in some of my favorite watering holes. The waitresses at the Doghouse still hadn’t tumbled to the fact that he was a genuine celebrity. Parker said he wanted to keep it that way.
"Who was he?" Parker asked, nodding toward the water.
"The dead man?" I shrugged. "That’s up to the medical examiner and the detectives on the case."
"But you’re a detective, aren’t you? Parker objected."
"This isn’t my case. I’m doing a movie, remember?"
Officer Jackson came back to where we were standing. She gave Derrick Parker a small, tentative smile. I’m sure she recognized him, but when she spoke, Merrilee Jackson was strictly business. "They’re all on their way."
"All?" I asked.
"Someone’s coming from the medical examiner’s office. So are two detectives. Davis and Kramer."
It wasn’t exactly by the book, but Officer Jackson had taken a little initiative, and calling everybody at once would probably save time.
I nodded. "Good," I said. "By the way, we haven’t been introduced. I’m Detective J. P. Beaumont, and this is Derrick Parker."
She held out her hand. "Merrilee Jackson," she said, shaking my hand, but flashing Parker a wide grin. "I’m glad to meet you."
Merrilee Jackson didn’t comment aloud on Derrick Parker’s star status, and neither did Baxter. They had other things to worry about. A crowd of movie crew members was edging closer. "We’d better get these people moved back out of the way," Baxter said. "The M. E.’s van will need to pull up close to the water."
They had barely turned their attention to crowd control when another car with lights flashing and siren blaring pulled onto the dock. Detective Manny Davis got out on the rider’s side and strode over to me while Detective Paul Kramer stopped to talk with Officers Jackson and Baxter.
"How’s it going, Beau?" Manny asked with a chuckle. "How soon are we going to see your name in lights?"
"Cut the comedy, Manny."
"But I heard you were enjoying the movie business."
I glowered at him.
"Okay, okay," he said. "No big. What have we got, fish bait?"
"That’s right. A floater."
Manny sauntered over to the edge of the dock and looked into the water. "He’s been in the water awhile," Manny observed. As if to confirm his words, the wind shifted just then and the pungent odor of putrid flesh wafted over us like an ill-smelling cloud. Fortunately, Goldfarb had led Cassie away by then. Had she been within range, I’m sure she would have barfed again.
One whiff and Derrick Parker’s engaging smile vanished completely.
"Jesus," he said with a grimace. "That’s awful." He started to back away, but Manny stopped him.
"Hey, wait a minute. Aren’t you…" Manny paused, searching for the name, then broke off, embarrassed.
"Derrick Parker?" Parker finished for him. He sighed. "Yes, that’s me," he said, and held out his hand.
Manny shook it wonderingly. "You know, my wife’s crazy about you, your pictures, I mean," he said. "She was pissed as hell that Beau got this assignment and I didn’t." Manny groped in his pocket for the small notebook he carried there. He found it at last and tore out a page which he handed to Derrick. "Could I have your autograph? For my wife, I mean. She’d be thrilled."
Obligingly, Derrick took the paper. Using the back of Manny’s notebook as a writing surface, he scrawled his name. He was just giving the autographed sheet of paper back to Manny when Paul Kramer showed up.
Manny Davis has been around the department for years. The last time I had worked with him had been several years earlier on a bum-bashing case. Paul Kramer was the new kid on the block, and I use the word kid advisedly. He was thirty years old and had just moved up to homicide from robbery. His rise to detective had been meteoric, but word was out around the squad that working with Kramer was a royal pain in the ass.
Kramer arrived just in time to see Manny taking the piece of paper from Derrick and stuffing it in his pocket. He looked from Derrick to Manny and back again.
"Witness?" Kramer asked.
Manny glanced in my direction then shook his head. "It’s nothing," he said. "I was just lining Beau and his friend here up for a friendly game of golf."
Partnerships, like some marriages, aren’t always made in heaven. Manny and Kramer’s working relationship was evidently an uneasy one.
I understood the situation. So did Derrick. We both had sense enough to keep our mouths shut."

RATING:
4 stars.

STARTED-FINISHED
5/28/22 - 6/10/22 ( )

Beau dives into a case that he hasn’t been assigned to. He is supposed to an advisor on a movie set, but they aren’t listening to him. When a body is discovered floating in the water, Beau goes into full detective mode. He goes a bit too far in pursuing leads and it lands him in hot water and some danger as well. The mystery is well written and exciting. The characters seem real, as they cope with the good and the bad that life throws at them. This series continues to be entertaining and intriguing. ( )

More interesting characters, a couple of bad/insane people turn out to be good guys -- a nice twist. Jance seems to be setting the stage for Beaumont to have a drinking problem.
( )

ereader ebook

This is a good, fast-moving police procedural. I recently read one of the later J.P. Beaumont mysteries and did not like it at all – it was too burdened with minor characters (friends and relatives of Beau, mainly) and their backstory. This book is much earlier in the series, and shows what was attractive about the books. There is a fairly convoluted crime, a single-minded detective, some danger, a small cast of familiar stereotypical characters, and some Seattle backdrops. It’s not literature, but it keeps you reading. ( )