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). Beau has struggled through a hard life of alcoholism and two failed marriages, but now, just maybe, he's pulled things together. After his return to Seattle, his new partner, Sue Danielson, bombards him with two cases and a number of leads. A 67-year-old woman named Agnes Ferman burned to death in her bed. After $300,000 was discovered in her garage, the police rightly began to suspect murder. At almost the same time, a group of teenagers discovered the long-dead body of a Native American man—possibly connected to recent hate crime. Sue and Beau plunge into both cases while they begin to learn a bit more about each other.