Vigilantes and the slow pace of justice

Our friendly family book giver dropped off more books a couple weeks ago. One of them was J.A. Jance's Justice Denied. I took it along on the trip to take D back to Beloit. But since the trip required us to spend time with granddaughter Jaime, I didn't get much reading done until I got home.

I have enjoyed Jance's mysteries before, but I was in exactly the right mood for this one. Justice Denied takes place in the Seattle area and involves seemingly unrelated investigations by two people working on a special task force for the state attorney general. Those two people happen to be lovers. But the romance part of the book is minimal and actually makes the characters more realistic for me. It reminded me of some of Laurie R. King's San Francisco mysteries.

I appreciated the fact than none of the investigators or detectives in the story were lone wolves. They worked together. They talked to each other. No one went off on a heroic solo to save the world from nefarious bad guys. I rather liked all the major characters in this book. I don't know about your experiences, but that's rare for me.

I was taken aback mostly by the ease with which the principals could find relevant and useful information on the Internet. I know that law enforcement people have access to things us mortals don't, but multiplying the amount of information doesn't mean that it's easier to find what you want to know.

The story flows well. It's complex and the connections between the sub plots are reasonable. Conversations and internal dialogues supplement descriptions of events. For me, it would have been a great book to read on the deck at the lake. I just wasn't at the lake.

Try it out if you haven't read Jance's books. For me, this is one of her best.

---

---