Improbable Cause

 (10 customer reviews)

Often, either late in a "mystery author's" career or posthumously, the author is found by the "snobberati" at the NY Times or one of the weekly newsmags. Since these critics would hate to be caught reading mysteries, the author is labelled a "NOVELIST" by the critics and given a big push in the media. It happened to Raymond Chandler, Ross MacDonald, and John D. MacDonald among others. why wait until a deserving author is old or dead? It's time to give early attention to J A Jance. Her work transcends the genre and becomes a tale of characters-characters as well developed as those of a fine Dickens novel. In Improbable Cause, Jance weaves these characters into the story surrounding a dentist who is a spouse abuser. Why he was killed is plain. Who killed him becomes an investigation of sympathetic characters, none of whom you want to see arrested for the crime. When an ex-con is implicated, Beaumont finds himself at odds with his...Read more

I genuinely enjoyed this book. J.P. Beaumont is one of my favorite detective characters. While he has the usual jaded outlook on life of a lot of fictional detectives, he does transcend the genre and is rather a complex person instead of the stereotypical hardboiled cop. In this book, the victim is distinctly unlikeable and the suspects are almost uniformly sympathetic. It's the rare mystery where you want the reader to know the answer, but not necessarily the police. The reason I marked this one down a bit is because Beaumont seemed a little flatter somehow here and the writing somehow did not draw me in as usual. While one would certainly not expect a "dark night of the soul" in every book, one also should not expect to see him flattening out to become "everydetective" either. If you're a Jance fan, this one is definitely entertaining and worth reading, though. If you're new to her books, I woul suggest starting with the first book in the series - Until Proven Guilty.

While I usually enjoy reading about J.A.Jance's hero, J.P. Beaumont, I was disappointed by the predictable plot and resolution of this novel. As a current Seattleite, I relish Jance's descriptions of my fair city which are both amusing and accurate. Try others of Jance's novels, but I would recommend skipping Improbable Cause.