It's strange, but I seem to like the odd numbered books in this series better than the even-numbered ones. Liked this one, didn't like #14, liked #13, didn't like 12. I'm sure it doesn't hold up through the whole set but, y'know, weird. This had a nice pace to it, some interesting detective work, a bit of misdirection and not too too much family drama for Joanna. As always nice sense of place, you could probably navigate perfectly around Bisbee just by reading these books. Not to say that there are not some unbelievable moments - Joanna is clueless about texting and social media in general...in 2012...my MIL at 95 I accepted that, but all the 70+ yr-olds I know (a lot) are at minimum Facebook savvy. And I would rather the resolution have gone another way but it was okay. There's a subplot at the end that felt clumsily placed. Either it should have been woven into the rest of the story and unfolded gradually, or I could see it as an entire book on its own. I do wonder how Joanna is going to like Butch mining her father's journals for his own book plots. But - I did like it, I have #16 on my TBR shelf, I'll see how I like that one.
Andrew K. (kuligowskiandrewt) -
Some veteran authors fall into a rut it could be due to reader demand, or to pressure from the editor/publisher, or that they're a one-trick pony who has to keep repeating themselves, or many other reasons. It's always interesting when an author realizes that there's a formula to their work, and attempts to break out of the pattern. Sometimes it works, sometimes not and sometimes it falls in between.
Judgment Call is the 15th book in J.A. Jance's Joanna Brady series. In the others (the two crossovers with her J.P. Beaumont series excepted) are very good, but follow the same general stages that we all learned in creative writing. - Intro, Conflict, Climax, Resolution at about the same approximate pace. In Judgment Call, Jance decided to try something a little different. Yes, our creative writing instructors would still approve of her use of the 4 stages. However, Jance decides to take TWO stories and interweave them. Two SEPARATE murders, with two SEPARATE sets of suspects and witnesses and family members well, almost, it IS a small town, after all. She succeeds in telling BOTH stories at the pace they need to be told, bring the lagging story and the novel to a successful and satisfying conclusion at what feels an appropriate time and pace.
Hats off to J.A. Jance. She loves her characters and her readers too much to risk them becoming stale.
RATING: 4 stars, and I had to stop to think awhile before not bumping up to 5.
Judgment Call is the 15th book in J.A. Jance's Joanna Brady series. In the others (the two crossovers with her J.P. Beaumont series excepted) are very good, but follow the same general stages that we all learned in creative writing. - Intro, Conflict, Climax, Resolution at about the same approximate pace. In Judgment Call, Jance decided to try something a little different. Yes, our creative writing instructors would still approve of her use of the 4 stages. However, Jance decides to take TWO stories and interweave them. Two SEPARATE murders, with two SEPARATE sets of suspects and witnesses and family members well, almost, it IS a small town, after all. She succeeds in telling BOTH stories at the pace they need to be told, bring the lagging story and the novel to a successful and satisfying conclusion at what feels an appropriate time and pace.
Hats off to J.A. Jance. She loves her characters and her readers too much to risk them becoming stale.
RATING: 4 stars, and I had to stop to think awhile before not bumping up to 5.
Very good suspenseful book...Have read all of J.A. Jance's
books as they are so well written...Never bored...
books as they are so well written...Never bored...
