Fire and Ice – 5 Paws

J. A. Jance

William Morrow, 2009, 338 Pages

ISBN No. 978-0-06-123822-9

Fans of J. A. Jance will be thrilled with this new book where J. P. Beaumont and Joanna Brady are once again thrown together.  The individual cases are very far apart in both distance and the type of case.

Beaumont is at home in Seattle happy in his life with Melissa Soames, his wife and sometimes partner, in the Special Homicide Investigation Team a/k/a S.H.I.T.  The department is working on a series of murders where young women have been wrapped in tarps, doused in gasoline and set on fire.  The investigators believe that the women may have been prostitutes.  The fact that the bodies have been burned and the teeth have been pulled makes it very difficult to identify the victims.  The last body was disposed of in a hurry and this one still has her teeth.  This is the first real lead in the crimes.

Sheriff Johanna Brady is working a different type of murder case in Cochise County, Arizona.  The caretaker at an ATV park called Action Trail Adventures had been run over and left to die in the desert.  Lester Attwood, the victim, had some problems in his past but his sister felt that he put his problems behind him since becoming caretaker at the ATV Park.  Sheriff Brady has a lot on her plate right now with a budget that will not give an inch and a new Medical Examiner. Brady also has to deal with a nursing home scandal that is heartbreaking.   

The story shifts back and forth between the murder investigation Beaumont is handling in Washington and Brady’s problems in Arizona.  When Beaumont finds a connection between his latest victim and an officer in Brady’s Cochise County Sheriff’s department the story really heats up.   Fire and Ice is a must read for J. A. Jance’s fans.  It is not necessary to have read other Beaumont and Brady novels to enjoy this book.

Reviewed by Patricia E. Reid