In J. A. Jance’s mystery series, J.P. Beaumont is the central character. He works for the Seattle Police Department as a homicide detective. J.P. Beaumont establishes himself as a valued crime fighter for Seattle. The series has 25 novels and two novellas and short stories.
Jonas Piedmont Beaumont is his full name, but his friends refer to him simply as Beau. He is a likable but troubled detective. As the series develops, he pieces his life together while catching brutal killers. His private life adds a unique dimension to the series. He’s a tall, divorced man with a lot of money.
Beaumont is usually sidetracked by gorgeous women while he hunts the bad guys.
He has seen more tragedies than most Seattle residents, ranging from children to family men and the elderly. His desire propels him from case to case with a zeal that matches the criminal’s motivation.
The detective fights against a homicidal and zealous religious sect in the first J.P. Beaumont book, Until Proven Guilty.
It didn’t take long for readers to figure out what Beaumont was up to. J.P. Beaumont charmed Mystery enthusiasts with his 1986 follow-up, Trial by Fury. The book received an Anthony Award nomination.
J.P. Beaumont Books in order
J.P. Beaumont
- Until Proven Guilty (1985)
- Injustice For All (1986)
- Trial by Fury (1986)
- Taking the Fifth (1987)
- Improbable Cause (1988)
- A More Perfect Union (1988)
- Dismissed with Prejudice (1989)
- Minor in Possession (1990)
- Payment In Kind (1991)
- Without Due Process (1992)
- Failure to Appear (1993)
- Lying in Wait (1994)
- Name Withheld (1996)
- Breach Of Duty (1999)
- Birds of Prey (2001)
- Partner in Crime (2002)
- Long Time Gone (2005)
- Justice Denied (2007)
- Fire and Ice (2009)
- Betrayal of Trust (2011)
- Second Watch (2013)
- Ring In the Dead (2013)
- Stand Down (2015)
- Dance of the Bones (2015)
- Still Dead (2017)
- Proof of Life (2017)
- Sins of the Fathers (2019)
- Nothing to Lose (2022)
Similar authors
- C.J. Box’s Joe Pickett series follows a game warden and his family. As the political and economic environment changes, they try to survive in a remote community.
- David Baldacci’s Atlee Pine series portrays an FBI agent with unique abilities. He’s sent to the wilds of the United States, where he’ll have to deal with a variety of threats. See also Baldacci’s Will Robie Books in Order.
See also: J.A. Jance Books in Order.
Most recommended books of the series
- Nothing to Lose (J.P. Beaumont, #25) (4.51 Goodreads score)
- Sins of the Fathers (J.P. Beaumont #24) 4.23 Goodreads score)
- Second Watch (J.P. Beaumont, #21) 4.19 Goodreads score)
- Breach of Duty (J.P. Beaumont, #14) 4.17 Goodreads score)
- Without Due Process (J.P. Beaumont, #10) 4.15 Goodreads score)
Awards
Trial by Fury was nominated for an Anthony Award in the category of Paperback Original in 1987. Fire and Ice, released in 2009, featured the right amount of violence and romance to receive a starred review from Publishers Weekly. Dance of the Bones, the latest volume in the J.P. Beaumont series, won the prize for Publishers Weekly’s starred review in 2015.
Latest releases in the series
The newest book in the J. P. Beaumont series, Nothing to Lose, was released on February 22nd, 2022.
Book summaries
Until Proven Guilty (1985)
The little girl was found murdered, her pink nightgown twisted around her throat. She was only five. The woman who came to the funeral to throw a single rose on the coffin was very much alive, and beautiful. The kind of beautiful that homicide detective J. P. Beaumont couldnt resist. But lurking in the dark corners of this bizarre case was not just a demented mind obsessed with murder, but secrets so deadly, so close to Beaumonts own life, that even a street tough cop could die guessing at the answers…
Injustice For All (1986)
Homicide detective J.P. Beaumont met the blonde on the beach. She was screaming. A dead man lay at her feet. It didn’t take Beaumont long to find out the man was murdered. Both the lady and the corpse were members of the State Parole Board. The killer could be seeking personal justice for one of the Parole Board’s fatal mistakes. The case was turning into a deadly mixture of politics and passion, a nightmare – one where an experienced cop might not be able to stop a killer motivated by blind vengeance…or obsession.
Trial by Fury (1986)
The dead body discovered in a Seattle dumpster was shocking enough—but equally disturbing was the manner of death. The victim, a high school coach, had been lynched, leaving behind a very pregnant wife to grieve over his passing, and to wonder what dark secrets he took to his grave. A Homicide detective with twenty years on the job, J.P. Beaumont knows this case is a powder keg and he fears where this investigation will lead him. Because the answers lie on the extreme lethal edge of passion and hate, where the wrong kind of love can breed the most terrible brand of justice.
Taking the Fifth (1987)
There are many bizarre and terrible ways to die. Seattle Homicide Detective J. P. Beaumont thought he had seen them all—until he saw this body, its wounds, and the murder weapon: an elegant woman’s shoe, its stiletto heel gruesomely caked with blood. The evidence is shocking and unsettling, even for a man who prowls the shadows for a living, for it suggests that savagery is not the exclusive domain of the predatory male. And the scent of a stylish killer is pulling Beaumont into a world of drugs, corruption, and murder to view close-up a cinematic dream at its most nightmarish . . . and lethal.
Improbable Cause (1988)
Perhaps it was fitting justice: a dentist who enjoyed inflicting pain was murdered in his own chair. The question is not who wanted Dr. Frederick Nielsen dead, but rather who of the many finally reached the breaking point. The sordid details of this case, with its shocking revelations of violence, cruelty, and horrific sexual abuse, would be tough for any investigator to stomach. But for Seattle Homicide Detective J.P. Beaumont, the most damning piece of the murderous puzzle will shake him to his very core — because what will be revealed to him is nothing less than the true meaning of unrepentant evil.
A More Perfect Union (1988)
A shocking photo screamed from the front pages of the tabloids—the last moments of a life captured for all the world to see. The look of sheer terror eternally frozen on the face of the doomed woman indicated that her fatal fall from an upper story of an unfinished Seattle skyscraper was no desperate suicide—and that look will forever haunt Homicide Detective J.P. Beaumont. But his hunt for answers and justice is leading to more death, and to dark and terrible secrets scrupulously guarded by men of steel behind the locked doors of a powerful union that extracts its dues payments in blood.
Dismissed with Prejudice (1989)
The blood at the scene belies any suggestion of an “honorable death.” Yet, to the eyes of the Seattle police, a successful Japanese software magnate died exactly as he wished—and by his own hand, according to the ancient rite of seppuku. Homicide Detective J.P. Beaumont can’t dismiss what he sees as an elaborate suicide, however, not when something about it makes his flesh crawl. Because small errors in the ritual suggest something darker: a killer who will go to extraordinary lengths to escape detection—a fiend with a less traditional passion . . . for cold-blooded murder.
Minor in Possession (1990)
All manner of sinners and sufferers come to the rehab ranch in Arizona when they hit rock bottom. For Seattle detective J.P. Beaumont, there is a deeper level of Hell here: being forced to room with teenage drug dealer Joey Rothman. An all-around punk, Joey deserves neither pity nor tears—until he is murdered by a bullet fired from Beaumont’s gun. Someone has set Beau up brilliantly for a long and terrifying fall, dragging the alcoholic ex-cop into a conspiracy of blood and lies that could cost him his freedom . . . and his life.
Payment In Kind (1991)
It looks like a classic crime of passion to Detective J.P Beaumont: two corpses found lovingly entwined in a broom closet of the Seattle School District building. The prime suspect, Pete Kelsey, admits his slain spouse was no novice at adultery, yet he swears he had nothing to do with the brutal deaths of the errant school official and her clergyman-turned-security guard companion. Beau believes him, but there’s something the much sinned-upon widower’s not telling—and that spells serious trouble still to come.Because the secret Pete’s protecting is even hotter than extra-marital sex. . . and it could prove more lethal than murder.
Without Due Process (1992)
What kind of monster would break into a man’s home at night, then slaughter him and his family? The fact that the dead man was a model cop who was loved and respected by all only intensifies the horror. But the killer missed someone: a five-year-old boy who was hiding in the closet. Now word is being leaked out that the victim was “dirty.” But Seattle P.D. Homicide Detective J.P. Beaumont isn’t about to let anyone drag a murdered friend’s reputation through the muck. And he’ll put his own life on the firing line on the gang-ruled streets to save a terrified child who knows too much to live.
Failure to Appear (1993)
A desperate father’s search for his runaway daughter has led him to the last place he ever expected to find her: backstage at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. But the murders in this dazzling world of make-believe are no mere stagecraft, and the blood is all too real. The hunt for his child has plunged former Seattle Homicide Detective J.P. Beaumont into a bone-chilling drama of revenge, greed, and butchery, where innocents are made to suffer in perverse and terrible ways. And many more young lives are at stake, unless he can uncover the villain of the piece before the final, deadly curtain falls.
Lying in Wait (1994)
The sky above Puget Sound blazes orange, as a burning fishing boat fills the air with acrid smoke . . . and the sickening odor of charred flesh. The terrible death of a Seattle fisherman has raised more questions than answers, opening a Pandora’s Box of evil that was kept tightly closed for more than half a century. Now a dark cloud is descending over the dead man’s frightened widow, and she must turn for help to an old friend, Detective J.P. Beaumont, the one man who can free her from a web of murderous greed and oppressive terror. But the secrets that hold Else Didricksen prisoner are about to ensnare Beaumont as well . . . in ways he never dreamed possible.
Name Withheld (1996)
There are those who don’t deserve to live—and the corpse floating in Elliott Bay may have been one of those people. Not surprisingly, many individuals, too many in fact, are eager to take responsibility for the brutal slaying of the hated biotech executive whose alleged crimes ranged from the illegal trading of industrial secrets to rape. For Seattle Detective J.P. Beaumont—who’s drowning in his own life-shattering problems—a case of seemingly justifiable homicide has sinister undertones, drawing the haunted policeman into a corporate nightmare world of double deals, savage jealousies, and real blood spilled far too easily, as it leads him closer to a killer he’s not sure he wants to find.
Breach Of Duty (1999)
Jonas Piedmont Beaumont has had it rough all his life. Raised by his hardworking, unmarried mother and disowned as a youth by his grandparents, he learned at a very early age how cruel life can be. Two marriages, a treacherous battle with the bottle, assorted midlife and moral dilemmas, and a few decades as a homicide detective haven’t convinced him otherwise. For his gruesome caseload continually reinforces those ugly childhood lessons about the awesome and terrifying cruelty of man.While the more things change, the more they stay the same, the Seattle that beau knew as a young policeman is disappearing around him. The city is awash in the aromas emanating from a glut of gourmet coffee bars, the neighborhood outside his condo building has sprouted gallery upon gallery, and even his long-cherished diner has evolved into a trendy eatery for local Gen X-ers and hipsters. But all the glam is strictly surface, for the grit under the city’s fingernails remains caked with blood…When Beau and his new partner Sue Danielson are assigned the murder of an elderly woman torched to death in her bed, Beau finds himself distracted by Sue’s difficulties at home. Distraction soon turns to terror as Beau and Sue find themselves caught up in a series of events that will leave them and their carefully constructed investigation shattered. For Beau, nothing will ever be the same again.
Birds of Prey (2001)
The Starfire Breeze steams its way north toward the Gulf of Alaska, buffeted by crisp sea winds blowing down from the Arctic. Those on board are seeking peace, relaxation, adventure, escape. But there is no escape in this place of unspoiled natural majesty. Because terror strolls the decks even in the brilliant light of day . . . and death is a conspicuous, unwelcome passenger. Former Seattle policeman J.P. Beaumont—a damaged homicide detective who has come here to heal from fresh, stinging wounds—will find that the grim ghosts pursuing him were not left behind . . . as a pleasure cruise gone horribly wrong carries him into lethal, ever-darkening waters.
Partner in Crime (2002)
The dead woman on a cold slab in the Arizona morgue was a talented artist recently arrived from the West Coast. The Washington State Attorney General’s office thinks this investigation is too big for a small-town female law officer to handle, so they’re sending Sheriff Joanna Brady some unwanted help—a seasoned detective named Beaumont. Sheriff Brady resents his intrusion, and Bisbee, Arizona, with its ghosts and memories, is the last place J.P. Beaumont wants to be. But the twisting desert road they must reluctantly travel together is leading them into a very deadly nest of rattlers. And if they hope to survive, suddenly trust is the only option they have left . . .
Long Time Gone (2005)
Fifty years ago, when she was five, Sister Mary Katherine witnessed something terrible . . .A former Seattle policeman now working for the Washington State Attorney’s Special Homicide Investigation Team, J.P. Beaumont has been hand-picked to lead the investigation into a half-century-old murder. An eyewitness to the crime, a middle-aged nun, has now recalled grisly, forgotten details while undergoing hypnotherapy.It’s a case as cold as the grave, and it’s running headlong into another that’s tearing at Beau’s heart: the vicious slaying of his former partner’s ex-wife. What’s worse, his rapidly unraveling friend is the prime suspect.Caught in the middle of a lethal conspiracy that spans two generations and a killing that hits too close to home — targeted by a vengeful adversary and tempted by a potential romance that threatens to reawaken his personal demons — Beaumont may suddenly have more on his plate than he can handle, and far too much to survive.
Justice Denied (2007)
The murder of an ex-drug dealer ex-con—gunned down on his mother’s doorstep—seems just another turf war fatality. Why then has Seattle homicide investigator J.P. Beaumont been instructed to keep this assignment hush-hush? Meanwhile, Beau’s lover and fellow cop, Mel Soames, is involved in her own confidential investigation. Registered sex offenders from all over Washington State are dying at an alarming rate—and not all due to natural causes.A metropolis the size of Seattle holds its fair share of brutal crime, corruption, and dirty little secrets. But when the separate trails they’re following begin to shockingly intertwine, Beau and Mel realize that they have stumbled onto something bigger and more frightening than they anticipated—a deadly conspiracy that’s leading them to lofty places they should not enter . . . and may not be allowed to leave alive.
Fire and Ice (2009)
Seattle investigator J. P. Beaumont is working a series of murders in which six young women have been wrapped in tarps, doused with gasoline, and set on fire. Their charred remains have been creating a grisly pattern of death across western Washington. At the same time, in the Arizona desert, Cochise County sheriff Joanna Brady is looking into a homicide in which the elderly caretaker of an ATV park was run over and left to die. Was he a victim of some kind of turf warfare – or possibly something more sinister? Then a breakthrough in Beaumont’s case leads him into Brady’s jurisdiction. When the two met on a joint investigation years earlier, sparks flew. But here, as the threads of their cases wind together, Beaumont and Brady must put aside echoes of their shared past as they are once again drawn into an orbit of deception. Except this time it’s not just their own lives that are in danger but those of the people closest to them as well.
Betrayal of Trust (2011)
At first glance, the video appears to be showing a childish game: a teenage girl with dark wavy hair smiles for the camera, a blue scarf tied around her neck. All of a sudden things turn murderous, and the girl ends up dead. It’s as bad as a snuff film can get, and what’s worse, the clip has been discovered on a phone that belongs to the grandson of Washington State’s governor. However, the boy, who has a troubled background, swears that he’s never seen the victim before.Fortunately, the governor is able to turn to an old friend, J. P. Beaumont, for help. The Seattle private investigator has witnessed many horrific acts over the years, but this one ranks near the top. Even more shocking is that the crime’s multiple perpetrators could be minors. Along with Mel Soames, his partner in life as well as on the job, Beaumont soon discovers that what initially appears to be a childish prank gone wrong has much deeper implications, reaching into the halls of state government itself. But Mel and Beau must follow this path of corruption to its very end, before more innocent young lives are lost.
Second Watch (2013)
Getting old is hell. J. P. Beaumont is finally taking some time off to have knee-replacement surgery. But instead of taking his mind off work, the operation plunges him into one of the most perplexing and mind-blowing mysteries he’s ever faced. A series of dreams takes him back to his early days on the force with the Seattle PD, and then even earlier, to his days in Vietnam, reminding him of people and events he hasn’t thought about in years.When tugging on those threads from long ago leads to present-day murders, Beau’s suspicions are confirmed. Some bodies from the second watch just won’t stay buried. A masterful demonstration of J. A. Jance’s superb craftsmanship, Second Watch is a thought-provoking novel that is also a poignant look at one of the most painful and divisive moments in our history – Vietnam – and a reminder of the staggering cost of war and the debts we owe to those who served then…and those who do now.
Ring In the Dead (2013)
J. P. Beaumont may be an old homicide hand now, but back when he was a rookie working with his first partner, Milton Gurkey—a.k.a. Pickles—things took a turn for the worse . . .One day, at the end of Beaumont and Pickles’s shift, a stop at the Doghouse restaurant quickly turns deadly. Not feeling well, Pickles steps out into the parking lot for a breath of fresh air and stumbles into a crime in progress. Suffering from a heart attack, he is found unconscious, with a dead woman on the ground nearby and the murder weapon in his hand.With Pickles under investigation from Internal Affairs, it’s up to the new kid on the block, J. P. Beaumont, and his friends on the force to find out the truth.
Stand Down (2015)
Life has shifted for J. P. Beaumont. After a tragic accident that devastated—and ultimately disbanded—his Special Homicide Investigation Team, he accepts that he has left homicide detection behind at this point, but he has a lot of unanticipated free time on his hands. He’s keeping busy with renovations on the new house that he and his wife, Mel Soames, the newly appointed chief of police in Bellingham, Washington, have bought. But new fixtures and paint palettes can occupy only so much of Beau’s daily life, and Mel is encouraging him to return to where he is needed: investigating crimes.In the meantime, she is struggling to gain control of her new situation, cast into a department where some are welcoming—and some are not. It’s been a few months, and the tension in the police department is rising, but Beau realizes Mel has to tackle things in her own way, so he refrains from advising. But when Beau shows up one afternoon to survey the construction at their new house and finds Mel’s car there but no sign of her, his investigative instincts kick in. Suddenly he’s back in the game—except this time, his heart is on the line as well as his professional dignity.
Dance of the Bones (2015)
Years ago, Amos Warren, a prospector, was gunned down out in the desert and Sheriff Brandon Walker made the arrest in the case. Now, the retired Walker is called in when the alleged killer, John Lassiter, refuses to accept a plea deal that would release him from prison with time served. Lassiter wants Brandon and The Last Chance to find Amos’s “real” killer and clear his name.Sixteen hundred miles to the north in Seattle, J.P. Beaumont is at loose ends after the Special Homicide Investigation Team, affectionately known as S.H.I.T., has been unexpectedly and completely disbanded. When Brandon discovers that there are links between Lassiter’s case and an unsolved case in Seattle, he comes to Beau for help.Those two cases suddenly become hot when two young boys from the reservation, one of them with close ties to the Walker family, go missing. Can two seasoned cops, working together, decipher the missing pieces in time to keep them alive?
Still Dead (2017)
Since the disbanding of the Special Homicide Investigation Team, J. P. Beaumont’s biggest concern is pondering whether he and his wife Mel should finally get a dog. But one voicemail from his old friend Ralph Ames is about to change that. Through Ralph, Beau has become involved in an organization called The Last Chance, which enlists a number of retired homicide investigators to tackle long-unsolved cold cases. The one that has just landed on Beau’s plate is a thirty-year-old missing persons case.The facts are muddy at best; Janice Marie Harrison’s car was found abandoned near a bridge, and scratched in the dirt nearby was the word “sorry.” It’s possible her death was a suicide, but her body was never found. And as Beau begins to investigate, he discovers that no one connected to Janice—not her once-all-star football player widower, Anders; not her long-grieving sister, Estelle; not sheriff Gavin Loper, who was deputy sheriff at the time of Janice’s disappearance; and not Anders’s second wife Betsy—is exactly what they seem. The question is, which of them knows the truth?And why have they kept it buried?
Proof of Life (2017)
Be careful what you wish for . . .Before he retired, J. P. Beaumont had looked forward to having his days all to himself. But too much free time doesn’t suit a man used to brushing close to danger. When his longtime nemesis, retired Seattle crime reporter Maxwell Cole, dies in what’s officially deemed to be an accidental fire, Beau is astonished to be dragged into the investigation at the request of none other than the deceased victim himself. In the process Beau learns that just because a long-ago case was solved doesn’t mean it’s over.Caught up in a situation where old actions and grudges can hold dangerous consequences in the present, Beau is forced to operate outside the familiar world of law enforcement. While seeking justice for his frenemy and healing for a long fractured family, he comes face to face with an implacable enemy who has spent decades hiding in plain sight.
Sins of the Fathers (2019)
Former Seattle homicide cop, J. P. Beaumont, is learning to enjoy the new realities of retirementdoing morning crossword puzzles by a roaring fireplace; playing frisbee with his new dog; having quiet lunches with his still working wife.But then his pastcomes calling.When a long ago acquaintance, Alan Dale, shows up on Beaus doorstep with a newborn infant in hand and asking for help locating his missing daughter, Beau finds himself faced with an investigation that will turn his own life upside down by dragging hisnone-too-stellar past onto a roller-coaster ride that may well derail his serene present.It turns out that, even in retirement. murder is still the name of J. P. Beaumonts game.
Nothing to Lose (2022)
Years ago, when he was a homicide detective with the Seattle PD, J. P. Beaumont’s partner, Sue Danielson, was murdered. Volatile and angry, Danielson’s ex-husband came after her in her home and, with nowhere else to turn, Jared, Sue’s teenage son, frantically called Beau for help. As Beau rushed to the scene, he urged Jared to grab his younger brother and flee the house. In the end, Beaumont’s plea and Jared’s quick action saved the two boys from their father’s murderous rage.Now, almost twenty years later, Jared reappears in Beau’s life seeking his help once again—his younger brother Chris is missing. Still haunted by the events of that tragic night, Beau doesn’t hesitate to take on the case. Following a lead all the way to the wilds of wintertime Alaska, he encounters a tangled web of family secrets in which a killer with nothing to lose is waiting to take another life.
