'Dance of the Bones,' a Conversation With J.A. Jance

Photo: Harper Collins

J.A. Jance was born in South Dakota; raised in Arizona and graduated from of the University of Arizona. Before becoming an author, she worked as a school librarian on a Native American reservation; as a teacher, and also sold insurance. Her first book, Until Proven Guilty, was published in 1985. In the succeeding 30 years, she's written more than 58 novels and novellas, including the popular J.P. Beaumont mysteries; Joanna Brady mysteries; the Walker Family novels; and the Ali Reynolds novels.

In Dance of the Bones, protagonists from two different series intersect: J.P. Beaumont and Brandon Walker.

A prospector, Amos Warren, is killed in the Arizona desert. John Lassiter is convicted of the crime and sent to prison. Decades later, Brandon Walker is called in when the convicted man, John Lassiter, refuses a deal that would release him from prison for time served. He asks Brandon to find the "real" killer and clear his name.

In Seattle, 1,700 miles to the north, J.P. Beaumont has little to do ever since his homicide investigation unit was disbanded. He's contacted by Brandon Walker, after Brandon discovers links between Lassiter's case and an unsolved one in Seattle. These two cases become an urgent matter when two young boys from an Arizona reservation are missing. Can two seasoned police officers decipher the ties between the cases and understand the missing pieces in time to keep the boys alive?

What has made you use the initials J.A. instead of your full name?
When I started out, my publisher felt it would be best to use my initials rather than Judith Ann. They felt revealing my gender would be a liability for a book about a male detective

In Dance of the Bones, you cross-pollinate two characters from different series. Why did you do it?
The reason is to bring readers of one series to the other, and vice versa.

I encountered a problem I hadn't anticipated while I was writing the book: J.P. Beaumont would not share. He kept walking in and taking over the book. The only way to remedy that was to take part of his story out and put it in a novella called Stand Down. Since Beaumont was being so pushy, I had to include him in Dance of the Bones.

So, your characters are really alive for you?
Yes, they are. I'd be writing a Brandon Walker part and Beau would come in and take over the scene. I had to get him under control before I could finish writing this book. (Laughter).

Dance of the Bones includes facts and legends about the Tohono O'odham, the Desert People. Will you talk about that?
I spent five years as a librarian on a reservation for grades K through 12. I told twenty-six stories a week to children in K through 6 classrooms. Some of those stories were the legends of the Tohono O'odham people, who have been around since the time of Moses.

I wove pieces of those legends into the background of Dance of the Bones. What I find wonderful about folklore is it crosses all barriers of time, space and ethnicity. As I was writing the novel, I was struck by the similarity of the ancient legend to the story I was telling.

You live in Seattle, Washington and Tucson, Arizona. At least two of your series occur in these areas. Will you talk about settings for your novels?
If I wanted to invent a universe, I'd be Frank Herbert writing Dune. But, I'm too lazy to invent a universe, so I set my books in familiar places. When my characters are travelling a highway; when they're facing a summer monsoon or anything else, I have those familiar settings in my mind, which allows me to focus on what the characters are doing or thinking.

Do you have a specific method by which you construct a mystery?
I don't prepare an outline. I was forced to outline things in my sixth grade geography class. I hated it then, and nothing that's happened to me over the decades has changed my mind about outlining.

So you construct the story as you go along?
It didn't happen much in Dance of the Bones, but I wrote Hour of the Hunter in a non-linear way. In some of my books, the action only goes forward. It's unidirectional. In the Brandon Walker books, the timelines are elastic, like rubber bands. You're in one chapter in a certain place, and in the next chapter, you're somewhere else, and with someone different. And, they move back and forth in time. Writing that way, I discovered at a certain part of the story, the action would stop and I'd walk away, and begin writing about another character. Ultimately, it all meshes at some point. It's not a matter of figuring out the end in advance. I just can't write that way. For me, writing those rubber band timeline books is like going on vacation. I enjoy doing it so much.

You're very prolific. Do you ever encounter writer's block?
Yes. It's hell.

Once, I was writing a book based on an encounter with a real killer. I didn't want to use him in the book, so my publisher said 'Just rewrite it.' I needed a different character to be the bad guy. That caused writer's block so severe, it lasted a year. I ended up reading my alumni magazine from the University of Arizona, in which it described the creative writing program. I tried enrolling, and was told by the professor, 'Girls become teachers and nurses; boys become writers.' He wouldn't let me into his class. Now, at that time, I had eight Beaumont books published as original paperbacks. I had thought I might become a writer-in-residence at the U of A. I was told, and this is a direct quote, 'We don't do anything with genre fiction. We only do literary fiction.'

Well, it was a miracle. I was healed of writer's block on the spot. I used the professor as a model for the crazed killer in Hour of the Hunter. (Laughter).

Another time when I had writer's block, I was watching the news and the station had just fired a popular newscaster because the thirty-five year old male news director thought she was over the hill at age fifty-three. Within minutes, I was writing about Allie Reynolds being thrown off her news anchor desk.

The thing is, it's a bad idea to make mystery writers angry at you.

I understand when you go to book store signings, you ask the stores to donate a percentage of their profits to causes. Which causes are important to you?
I don't do that very much anymore since bookstores have become causes in and of themselves. In the thirty years during which I've been writing, the bookstore world has changed completely. It isn't far to ask them to donate at this time. In the past, I've asked them donate to the American Association of University Women; the YWCA; and a women's service organization awarding scholarships to young women.

I try to do events for organizations that help young women get a foothold. We wouldn't be talking today if I hadn't received a scholarship as a high school senior to attend college. In September, when I go to Bisbee, Arizona, my hometown, I'll be doing a benefit for the Bisbee High School Alumni Scholarship Fund.

If you weren't a writer, what would you be doing?
I would probably be selling life insurance, which I did years ago. It was a job with a flexible schedule and allowed me to raise my kids. I was able to care for my children without the benefit of child support from their father. Selling life insurance was never my dream job, but it paid the bills. I dreamed of being a writer from second grade on.

So you're someone whose dream has come true.
I often close my presentations with Janice Ian's song, "At Seventeen."

I was six feet tall in the seventh grade, and wore thick glasses. Junior high and high school were hell for me. So, the line of her song really resonated with me was: When dreams were all they gave for free to ugly duckling girls like me. And yes, I have made my dreams come true.

You're hosting a dinner party and can invite any five people, living or dead, from any walk of life. Who would they be?
Agatha Christie, Daphne Du maurier; Zane Gray, who though he was a western writer, was a dentist and naturalist; Winston Churchill; and Dwight D. Eisenhower. It's an eclectic group of people who would have a great deal to talk about.

Congratulations on writing Dance of the Bones, a novel to which Publishers Weekly gave a starred review and wrote, "Jance satisfies fans of both series with an energetic plot resplendent with believable twists, leaving readers eager for Beaumont and Walker's next outing."

Mark Rubinstein's latest novel is The Lovers' Tango

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