In Breach of Duty, after a three year hiatus, J. A. Jance resumes her Seattle-based mystery series featuring homicide detective Jonas Piedmont Beaumont.

The novel begins on Lake Chelan (in eastern Washington State) as Beau scatters his grandfather's ashes in the water. The reflective moment offers Jance a perfect opportunity to get new readers up to speed with her hero (and offers a quick refresher course for the many ongoing Jance fans).

Beaumont has a dead dentist on his hands. His suspects include a sexually abused dental assistant, a brutalized wife, and her ex-con lover.

The investigation of LaShawn Tompkins's murder seemed straightforward enough. Upon his release from death row, the ex-drug-dealer returned to his old neighborhood where he was gunned down on his mother's doorstep. Just another case of turf warfare. At least that's what it looks like on the surface to Seattle investigator J. P. Beaumont, who's been handed the assignment under the strictest confidence. But as Beau starts digging, the situation becomes

Beaumont's trip to Arizona turns into a nightmare when he is framed for the murder of a sleazy, teen-age drug dealer.

Beaumont is called in to investigate a body floating in nearby Elliott Bay. The case draws Seattle’s favorite detective into the cutting-edge world of biotechnology with personal betrayals and the selling of trade secrets.

The body lay amid the garbage behind a Seattle grocery store.  It was a high school basketball coach - he had been lynched.

Beaumont must find the killers of an entire family before they get to his 5-year-old eye-witness who was hiding in a closet at the murder scene.