Jance lands at Bing to discuss 51st novel, ‘Dance of the Bones’

Do not expect J.A. Jance to read from her latest book, “Dance of the Bones: A J.P. Beaumont and Brandon Walker Novel” when she comes to Spokane on Thursday as part of her book tour.

She promises she will not be doing any reading at her book reading.

“I think having authors read aloud is a really boring thing,” she said in a recent telephone interview from her home in Seattle. “I ran out of patience with reading aloud by the end of first grade.”

Instead, fans of the mystery novelist can expect Jance to discuss the origins of the book, as well as the background of the book and its setting.

“Dance of the Bones,” her 51st novel – that’s not a typo – comes out on Tuesday and brings two of her longtime characters, the retired lawmen Beaumont and Walker, together in a cold case that turns hot.

It’s something she’s done before, mingling the characters from some of her popular series. Beaumont and Arizona sheriff Joanna Brady teamed up in 2003’s “Partner in Crime” and again in “Fire and Ice.”

The motive? “To get the reader who only would read Beaumont to give themselves a break and let themselves read a Brady, and vice versa,” Jance said. “It’s a way of cross-pollinating the audience. In the past it has been a very effective tool for doing just that.”

She admits, though, that this book caused her some trouble as she was writing it.

“J.P. Beaumont kept walking on stage and trying to steal the show,” she said. “And I had a tough time getting him back under control.”

To solve the problem, Jance took the part of the story that Beaumont was “so insistent in my telling first” and spun it into the novella “Stand Down.” “Once I got that out of the way, Beau shaped up and did what he was supposed to do in this book.”

Fans of Beaumont – introduced in the 1985 novel “Until Proven Guilty” – will have little trouble believing the now-retired Seattle police detective wanted to elbow his way to center stage – he’s never been one to play nice with others. Still he and Walker, a retired sheriff who volunteers his time working on cold cases, find common cause when two cold cases, one in Arizona and one in Seattle, prove to be connected. And with a young boy’s life at risk, the stakes are high.

“Dance of the Bones” is set in the Walker family stomping grounds in and around the Tohono O’odham Indian Reservation southwest of Tucson, Arizona. It’s a world Jance knows, having spent several years working as a school librarian on the reservation.

“What I found fascinating then and what I continue to find fascinating is how the desert people manage to straddle living in both worlds, in a world that incorporates the old belief system while accepting new belief systems,” she said. “I find their resilience in being able to do that really fascinating. And I’m trying to express that in this story.”

With “Dance of the Bones” wrapped up, she’s now at work on a new novel, “Clawback,” featuring Ali Reynolds, a former TV anchor turned detective. After that? She’ll see which of her characters has a story to be told. Retirement, however, isn’t in the picture anytime soon.

“I dreamed of being a writer from the time I read ‘The Wizard of Oz’ in second grade,” she said. “I’m one of the few people who has managed to live my dream, and that’s still a miracle that takes my breath away sometimes.”