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When living in Seattle, I came across J. A. Jance's police procedurals featuring both the city of Seattle and police inspector J. P. Beaumont, known as "Beau." I read all that I could find and went on to read Jance's second series, featuring Arizona Sheriff Joanna Brady. Both series are quite enjoyable. Birds of Prey finds Beaumont retired, a regular at Alcoholics Anonymous, and on a pleasure cruise to Alaska. More than pleasure, he is there as a chaperon for his just re-married grandmother and her fellow octogenarian husband. If you ever had a bottle of Red Hook beer and wondered where its motto "Ya sure, ya betcha" came from, the Norwegian American husband from the Ballard area of Seattle gives you a clue with his constant use of "Ya sure." In the ship's dining room, Beaumont is seated at a table for six, his companions being four divorced women, all friends, and a younger man, Marc Alley, who owes his miraculous medical cure to a brain surgeon. The surgeon is also on board attending a professional meeting with some of his peers and hoping to be awarded a very generous grant to expand his work. The surgeon's ex-wife, Margaret Featherman, dominates her group, and takes a disliking to Beaumont. Later she disappears. Beaumont accidently learns what happened to her from a man suffering from Alzheimer's. In checking out this information, Beaumont gets the First Officer to allow him to review the ship's tapes, but only because teh officer confused Beaumont's name with that of an FBI agent. Earlier another FBI agent had approached Beaumont confidentially to ask him to keep a protective eye on Marc Alley. She revealed to Beaumont the existence of an organization, Leave It To God (LITG), of extreme religionists who are dead set against new medical cures as a violation of God's will, and who have a list of a thousand doctors they have marked for death because they are engaged in the research of such cures. LITG has already killed others, and the FBI agents are aboard to protect Dr. Featherman, but they are spread too thin to give much protection to the recipients of these cures who are also marked for death, such as Marc Alley. During a land excursion, a man is killed, and Beaumont assumes that Marc Alley, also on the excursion, was the intended victim. Meanwhile, one of Margaret's three friends becomes ostracized from her group, and Beaumont awkwardly takes her under his wing. He began the cruise thinking it would be a good rest, but changes his mind as he faces animosity from both an FBI agent who thinks he tried to impersonate him and two of the divorced women; tries to help the ostracized woman without getting too personally involved; looks into the disappearance of Margaret Featherman; is in difficulty with the ship's officers, and has to resolve the problems of his octogenarian newlyweds. He knows there is also someone with murderous intentions aboard and his old police training makes him salivate at thinking about solving the crime. Jance tells her story in a page-turning manner, creating interesting characters, giving us an well-painted vicarious ship's cruise, and maintaining continuous suspense. The book is not an intricate or spectacular mystery (very few are nowadays), but it's well worth reading, and fans of Beau Beaumont will want to keep up with his latest adventures. In a way Beaumont reminds me of Colin Dexter's Inspector Morse, and I used to visualize (unrealistically) the late John Thaw playing the part if the series was ever televised. I enjoyed Birds of Prey, and now I'd like to see Beaumont get back on the force and become active again with his old partner, Seattle.
Reviewed by Eugene Aubrey Stratton, September 2002
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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