J.A. Jance is a Seattle icon, a bestselling mystery author with a huge following and a name familiar to fans worldwide. She’s managed to produce two (!) very popular series characters, J.P. Beaumont and Joanna Brady; the Beaumont mysteries number up to 17, and now DEAD WRONG is her 12th book featuring Sheriff Joanna Brady of Cochise County, Arizona.
Jance is popular for a reason: She’s a very professional writer. Her stories are interesting, her characters are well-drawn and likable, her dialogue is crisp and very realistic … but there’s something missing – a crucial ingredient that often seems lacking in her work, a rawness, a willingness to experiment and discover new territory, a boldness that you just don’t often find in her latest books. Possibly because she doesn’t need to perform parlor tricks to get readers; her stories are good enough to please the book-buying public. But I can’t help but feel that with all her professionalism, I could get more out of the stories if more were originally put into them.
That nitpickety whine aside, DEAD WRONG is certainly entertaining. Sheriff Brady is pregnant (frankly, I’m tired of the expectant policewoman meme), and this makes it difficult for her to investigate the homicide of a man who has had all his fingers cut off. But she perseveres and through well-depicted police work, manages to connect the current case to a murder that occurred 25 years ago. In the meantime, one of her animal control officers is apparently raped and viciously beaten because the officer was investigating a pit bull dog-fighting ring.
The link between the two cases, years apart (and that’s yet another mystery cliché), is definitely intriguing, but the explanation of how the whole thing occurred seems …. well, implausible, to say the least. And there are so many loose threads left hanging. Whatever happens to the crazy but affable Arizona judge who is intimately involved in the case? Why does one not get a sense of closure on the case of the raped animal control officer?
While the writing is strong and readable as ever, the story seems muddled and perhaps a little hurried, especially toward the end of the 300-plus pages. But would I read Jance again? Absolutely. Would I hope for more next time? Probably. –Mark Rose
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