Showing results by author "J. A. Jance" in All Categories

After taking down the man responsible for his best friend's death, Stuart Ramey thinks the case is finally closed. That is, until Stu finds himself left with a multimillion-dollar fortune in Bitcoin in a desperate bid by Frigg, a rogue AI program created by the killer, to keep itself from being fully deactivated. To sort out his situation and take Frigg down for good, Stu enlists the help of Ali Reynolds and the rest of his cyber-security colleagues at High Noon Enterprises. But they are not the only ones who know about Frigg's existence.

Ten years ago, when Ali Reynolds’ high-profile newscaster life blew up on the West Coast, she went back home to Sedona, Arizona, to reinvent herself. Now, while she’s living her new life, someone from her past comes asking for help. But will revisiting the past jeopardize her future?

Mateo Vega, a one-time employee of Ali Reynold’s husband, B. Simpson, has spent the last 16 years of his life behind bars. According to the courts, he murdered his girlfriend. But Mateo knows that her real killer is still on the loose, and the first thing he’s going to do when he gets a taste of freedom is track him down. After being granted parole, a wary Mateo approaches Stu Ramey of High Noon Enterprises for a reference letter for a job application, but to his surprise, Stu gives him one better: He asks him to come on board and work for B. once again.

Roger McGeary, a brilliant software engineer, has gifted himself with an upscale cruise in honor of his 40th birthday. When he falls to his death from the balcony of his stateroom suite, the incident is quickly declared a suicide. Only his maiden aunt, a tough-as-nails woman who runs a racehorse refuge, refuses to take "case closed" for an answer and turns to Ali Reynolds at High Noon Enterprises to look into the situation.

As she passes the site of a horrifying accident, Ali is grateful that it's no longer her job to report the news, until she finds out that the news is her own: the victim is Ali's cheating husband. And soon she'll find herself the prime suspect at the center of a terrifying web of evil.

"A semi's gone over the embankment." The call wakes Sheriff Joanna Brady in the middle of the night, but what brings her fully alert is the rest of the story. The driver didn't drift off to sleep and cross the center line - he was shot, multiple times, by someone with serious firepower. And when the truck crashed through the guardrail, its payload wound up scattered all over the road - boxes upon boxes of Legos.

This case draws J. P. Beaumont into the cutting edge of biotechnology, where business as usual means ruthless betrayal of personal and trade secrets.

A woman is cruelly cut down in a remote corner of Arizona, killed on her nineteenth wedding anniversary by a drunk motorist. A year later, the driver himself dies badly, and all suspicions point to the slain woman's still-grieving husband as his murderer. But the truth is rarely black and white in the long Southwestern shadows, and one law officer is not rushing to condemn the tragic widower so quickly - Joanna Brady, sheriff of Cochise County.

Ali Reynolds is finally getting married to her longtime love B. Simpson. They wanted a simple Christmas Eve wedding, but nothing is ever simple with Ali. Even as a motley crew of her friends—Leland Brooks, Sister Anselm, and others—descend on Vegas, the bride-to-be finds herself juggling last-minute wedding plans and a mystery in the form of a stray miniature dachshund. Ali’s grandson rescues the little dog, but Ali’s not in the market for a new pet right before her honeymoon, and leaves no stone unturned in hunting for the dog’s owner.

The body lies amid the garbage behind a Seattle grocery store. He was a high-school basketball coach - and J. P. Beaumont discovers he was lynched.

A shadow from J. P. Beaumont's past shows up after 30 years, an ex-girlfriend whose husband has been brutally murdered.

J. P. Beaumont's teenaged daughter has run off. Her tracks lead to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and a case of murder.

Sheriff Joanna Brady must solve two perplexing cases that may be tied together in New York Times best-selling author J. A. Jance's thrilling tale of suspense that brings to life Arizona's Cochise County and the desert Southwest in all its beauty and mystery. An old woman, a hoarder, is dying of emphysema in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. In cleaning out her house, her daughter, Liza Machett, discovers a fortune in hundred dollar bills hidden in the tall stacks of books and magazines that crowd every corner.

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

A survivor of childhood trauma, two marriages, 20 hard years with the Seattle PD, and the bottle, Jonas Piedmont Beaumont has spent far too much time trolling the darker waters of human nature. In the wake of a devastating professional tragedy, he has decided, at long last, to pull the pin. But there is no safety in semiretirement for a man who long ago chose to make a violent world his home.

With a baby on the way, sudden deaths in the family from which to recover, a reelection campaign looming, and a daughter heading off for college, Cochise County Sheriff Joanna Brady has her hands full when a puzzling new case hits her department, demanding every resource she has at her disposal.

Ali Reynolds's longtime friend and Taser-carrying nun Sister Anselm, rushes to the bedside of a young pregnant woman hospitalized for severe injuries after she was hit by a car on a deserted Arizona highway. The girl had been running away from The Family, a polygamous cult with no patience for those who try to leave its ranks. Something about her strikes a chord in Sister Anselm, reminding her of a case she worked years before, when another young girl wasn't so lucky.

When too many bodies start showing up around a skeletal skyscraper structure, the iron workers' union comes under suspicion. And J. P. Beaumont must solve the case.

When Joanna Brady's daughter, Jenny, stumbles across the body of her high school principal, Debra Highsmith, in the desert, the Cochise County sheriff's personal and professional worlds collide. Though she's tried to protect her children from the dangers of the grown-up world, the search for justice leads straight to her own door and forces her to face the possibility that her beloved daughter may be less perfect than she seems. Yet the deeper Joanna digs, the more complications she uncovers....

Ali Reynolds begins the summer thinking her most difficult challenge will be surviving a six-week- long course as the lone 40-something female at the Arizona Police Academy—not to mention taking over the 6:00 AM shift at her family’s restaurant while her parents enjoy a long overdue Caribbean cruise.