Lamar Public Library

At first, the cops had little to go on -- a paycheck stub from Starlight Productions, a matchbook from the Edgewater Inn. Oh, and a body. Definitely male and decidedly dead, covered with strange little puncture wounds. Then they showed Beau what they had found in the blackberry bush. A woman's cobalt-blue shoe with a five-inch stiletto heel caked with blood and hair. "We have a bingo," the cop said. Detective J.P. Beaumont had his corpse. He had his...

Jonas Piedmont Beaumont has had it rough all his life. Raised by his hardworking, unmarried mother and disowned as a youth by his grandparents. He learned at a very early age how cruel life can be. Two marriages, a treacherous battle with the bottle, assorted midlife and moral dilemmas, and a few decades as a homicide detective haven't convinced him otherwise. For his gruesome caseload continually reinforces those ugly childhood lessons about the...

When a girl is strangled to death and the crime is captured on a grainy cell phone video, suspicion falls on the teenage grandson of Washington State's governor. To get to the truth, the governor calls on J.P. Beaumont to investigate. However, Beaumont soon connects the murder to a government cover-up.

Former Seattle homicide cop J. P. Beaumont, is learning to enjoy the new realities of retirement--doing morning crossword puzzles by a roaring fireplace; playing frisbee with his new dog; having quiet lunches with his still working wife. But then his past comes calling. When an acquaintance from long ago, Alan Dale, shows up on Beau's doorstep with a newborn infant in hand and asking for help locating his missing daughter, Beau finds himself faced...

Seattle detective J.P. Beaumont investigates a murder case that intersects with a cold case being pursued by his lover, Mel. The tension levels are high as Beaumont and Mel unravel a conspiracy involving prominent city officials.

Two family tragedies 50 years apart challenge J.P. Beaumont, Seattle investigator for the Washington Special Homicide Investigation Team. The state attorney general assigns Beaumont a cold case after a nun, Sister Mary Katherine, reports horrific dreams that indicate a long-repressed memory of witnessing a murder. But he's distracted when the former wife of his best friend, Ron Peters, is killed and suspicion falls on Ron's family, causing havoc....

"Web of Evil" is the second in a newly developing series for J. A. Jance. The first, "Edge of Evil", introduced readers to Ali. Other well-known and favorite characters in prior series are the famous J.P. Beaumont, the now-aging Seattle cop who made Jance a household name among mystery readers, and Joanna Brady, the Cochise County sheriff in the Arizona series.

In the heat of the Arizona desert, a raging fire pushed temperatures to a deadly degree, and one woman is left to burn. Pulled naked and barely breathing from the fire, the victim has no idea who she is, let alone who would do this to her - or why. In her hospital bed she drifts in and out of consciousness, her only means of communicating a blink of the eye. And then an angel appears. Misguidedly known around town as the "Angel of Death," Sister Anselm...