The HBS Author's Spotlight SHOWCASES J.A. Jance's New Book: Clawback.
J.A. "Judith" Jance is a New York Times bestselling author. She is best known for the Joanna Brady series and the J. P. Beaumont series.
Clawback
An Ali Reynolds Novel
Author: J.A. Jance
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In New York Times bestselling author J.A. Jance’s latest thriller, Ali Reynolds faces her most controversial mystery yet, solving the murder of a man whose Ponzi scheme bankrupted hundreds of people, and left them seeking justice…or revenge.
When Ali’s parents lose their life savings to a Ponzi scheme, her father goes to confront his long-time friend and financial advisor, only to stumble into the scene of a bloody double homicide. With her father suddenly a prime suspect, Ali and her husband work to clear her father’s name, while at the same time seeking justice for her parents as well as the scheme’s other suddenly impoverished victims, one of whom is a stone cold killer.
Excerpt from Clawback After years of running Sedona’s Sugarloaf Café, Bob Larson was enjoying the fruits of his labors and one of the most enjoyable benefits of retirement—the opportunity to sit at the kitchen counter, linger over a second cup of coffee, and watch the morning news. Short-order cooks in diners never see the news at that time of day. They’re always too busy dealing with the morning rush.
His attention had drifted momentarily to an Anna’s hummingbird delicately sipping nectar from the blooming paloverde just outside the living room window, but the words “Ocotillo Fund Management” penetrated his consciousness and drew his attention back to the screen. Realizing he’d missed the first part of the story, he grabbed the remote and ran the footage back to the beginning of the segment, so the sweet-faced, blond-haired news anchor could take another crack at it.
“Yesterday, employees at Phoenix-based Ocotillo Fund Management were sent home early with the doors chained shut behind them and the company out of business. Late yesterday afternoon, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced that they are launching a full investigation into allegations that monies invested with the company have gone missing. An unnamed source who is also a former employee of the firm said that the move came as a complete surprise to all concerned. This morning, we’ve left several messages for the company’s founder and CEO, Jason McKinzie. So far those messages have gone unanswered.”
Bob could barely believe what he was hearing. Ocotillo Fund Management? That Ocotillo Fund Management—the very company Bob and his wife, Edie, had chosen to manage their retirement funds? How could it be? With his heart hammering in his chest and both hands shaking, Bob set down his coffee mug and pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. He scrolled through his contacts list until he found Dan Frazier’s number—numbers, actually—work, home in Sedona, home in Paradise Valley, and cell. He tried the cell as well as both home numbers. Those calls all went to voice mail. The last one—to the work number—didn’t go through at all. Instead there was a tuneless three-toned signal followed by the standard notification.
“The number you have reached is not in service at this time. If you feel you have reached this message in error, please check the number and try again.”
Bob Larson did not try again. He ended the call and slipped the phone into the pocket of his worn khaki shirt. That was only to be expected. If the office’s doors were in lockdown, most likely the phones would have been turned off as well. So it was frustrating but hardly a surprise that there was no answer—no answer on the phones and no answers to his questions and no answers to his fears, either. All the while he’d been trying to call, a clutch of dread had grabbed his gut and twisted it, turning that last half-drunk cup of morning coffee into pure acid.
Abandoning both the TV remote and his coffee cup on the kitchen counter, Bob staggered over to one of the pair of easy chairs he and Edie had bought new when it came time to furnish their newly rented two-bedroom unit at Sedona Shadows. He was grateful Edie wasn’t there with him and hadn’t seen the news. She had gone off an hour earlier for her morning water aerobics session. She was still down at the pool, doing whatever it was the ladies did for an hour or more every morning. He could imagine her chatting away with her pals, blissfully unaware of the financial calamity that had just befallen them, but Bob was fully aware. He understood it completely.
Their nest egg was gone. Wiped out. The safety net he and Edie had carefully put aside for a rainy day had evaporated. Much as Bob wanted to unknow the extent of what had just happened, he couldn’t. He also knew it was his fault. Not his alone, of course—damn Dan Frazier anyway. That was the thing that was causing that white-hot knot of anger to form in Bob’s gut. He and Dan were friends—at least that’s what he had thought—friends first and clients later.
They’d known each other since their early twenties. When Dan’s dream of becoming a CPA had come to grief, he’d gone to work in his father’s property and casualty insurance agency right there in town, where Bob and Edie Larson had been among his first customers. They’d stuck with him through the years as Dan’s insurance business grew and prospered. Over time he had added an alphabet soup of official designations after his name, enough incomprehensible letters to choke a horse—Chartered this and Certified that.
Somewhere along the way, Dan had hit the big time, partnering with Jason McKinzie, a young hotshot financial wizard specializing in wealth management who had taken central Arizona by storm. Eventually Jason had invited Dan to join Ocotillo Fund Management, and where Dan Frazier went, Bob and Edie inevitably followed.
Once on board the OFM juggernaut, Dan had continued to maintain his Sedona office, running the insurance part of the business with underlings, while he spent most of his time operating out of the corporate office in Phoenix—the very one where the doors had been locked and the phones were no longer in service.
Dan had been a regular at the Sugarloaf, back when Edie’s mother had still owned it. He and Dan had worked several community service projects over the years, and when Dan was able to go to a Barrett Jackson auction and acquire a fully restored 1966 Mustang convertible, he had come to Bob looking for advice on the care and feeding of it.
Through the years, Bob and Edie had faithfully salted money away for retirement, stashing it in Ocotillo-managed accounts that Dan had recommended. When Bob reached age seventy-and-a-half and had to start taking annual distributions, they’d still been running the restaurant and hadn’t needed the money, so they had plugged those funds back into non-tax-deferred accounts with Ocotillo as well. When they had finally decided to sell the diner, Dan had used his connections to help locate the business broker who had effected the transaction. Since their unit in Sedona Shadows was essentially a rental, they’d had to pay a deposit, but they hadn’t needed either a down payment or a mortgage. That’s when they decided to put the proceeds from the sale of the restaurant into an Ocotillo account as well.
“Are you sure about this?” the always practical Edie had asked. “Isn’t it a lot like putting all our eggs in one basket?” “Dan’s a good friend,” Bob had replied. “He wouldn’t steer us wrong, would he?”
That was the problem. Obviously Dan Frazier had done exactly that—steered them wrong. Bob remembered every detail about their discussion that day, shortly after the sale of the restaurant—every single word. Dan had told him everything would be fine—that their money would be perfectly safe. Only it wasn’t, and now all their retirement eggs were shattered, lost beyond repair.
The news reporter had mentioned that the SEC was now involved, and Bob had no idea what that meant or what would happen next. Bankruptcy, maybe? Lawyers? All of that was above his pay grade, but Bob did understand that if lawyers got their grubby paws on the process, whatever happened next was bound to be expensive. If he and Edie were lucky—very lucky—they’d maybe get pennies back on the dollar from an amount that, with the sale of the diner as well as the accompanying living quarters, had risen to a total of over a million bucks.
When they sold the Sugarloaf, they had splurged on a new Buick for Edie—her toes-up Buick, as she called it—and on some new furniture for their unit at Sedona Shadows, but the rest of the money had been handed over to none other than Ocotillo Fund Management!
When Dan had first urged them to move their IRAs and defined benefit accounts to Ocotillo, he had brought them a shiny, full-color prospectus delineating the various funds and their expected returns. There had been all the CYA stuff about “historical returns are no guarantee of future results,” and Bob had wondered about that.
“How can Jason McKinzie make these returns happen?” Edie had asked, after reading through one of them. “How is it possible for him to beat everyone else’s earnings by two to four points?”
“By being smarter than the average bear,” Dan had replied with an engaging grin. “He’s bright enough to spot market corrections coming in advance. That way he unloads underachieving properties before things go south, giving him cash to reinvest while prices are still low. That’s what you have to do in this business—be ahead of the curve.”
In the end, though, having voiced her opinion, Edie had left the final decision up to Bob. “I’m the one who knows everything there is to know about flour and yeast,” she told him. “You’re the one with the head for business.”
Armed with Edie’s somewhat grudging agreement, Bob had gone along with his old friend Dan, and signed on the dotted line. Ocotillo had three separate funds for him to choose from, and Bob had opted for the most conservative of the three. Two points above the market was one thing. Four points or six? That sounded like too much of a good thing, so he had settled on the lowest one.
But now even that fund had been wiped out. Ocotillo was out of business. The office was locked, the phones were off. As for Jason McKinzie? Bob realized that McKinzie was most likely in the wind, but what about Dan Frazier—Bob’s good friend, his old pal? What was he doing right about now? Did he have the good grace to at least feel guilty about what had happened? Was he ashamed of himself for not warning people in advance?
That was the thing Bob could hardly stomach. Dan must have known this was coming. The “unnamed source” the newscaster referred to, the one who said all this came as a “complete surprise,” was maybe low enough on the totem pole that he’d had no idea about what was happening, but Dan was another story. Supposedly Dan had been part of upper management in the firm—at least that was how he’d had presented himself as far as Bob and Edie were concerned. If the venture was about to implode, he must have had some inkling in advance that something was wrong.
And yet, a few weeks earlier, when Bob and Edie had run into Dan and Millie Frazier at the annual Kiwanis Mother’s Day Pancake Feed at the high school, Dan had been his jolly old self, glad-handing everyone who came within reach and giving the ladies, Edie included, discreet pecks on the cheek. It irked Bob now to realize that, the entire time, Dan must have been putting on a show and pretending that everything was A-OK. He hadn’t said a word to Bob that day that had hinted that anything was amiss—nothing to warn his loyal clientele of the oncoming train wreck.
Dan had been a businessman in town for decades, so it stood to reason that he was well known in the community, but today Bob couldn’t help wondering how many other folks attending that pancake breakfast had been duped out of their life savings in the same way he and Edie had. How many poor rubes had that low-down snake in the grass greeted that morning with his firm handshake and misleading smile? Remembering that breakfast, Bob blinked back to the memory of introducing him to Betsy Peterson, one of Sedona Shadows’ most recent arrivals and the grandmother of his grandson’s wife, Athena.
Betsy was still in the process of selling her properties in Minnesota, and Bob had intended to introduce her to Dan with the recommendation that she might consider putting her funds under Dan’s management. At the time, Betsy had responded with a firm “Thanks, but no thanks.” Bob had been a little put off by that, but now he was supremely grateful that she had. At least Bob had dodged that bullet.
Glancing at his watch, Bob realized that Edie and Betsy would soon be finishing up with water aerobics and might return to their unit any minute. To everyone’s surprise, after arriving at Sedona Shadows, eightysomething Betsy had taken to Edie Larson and to water aerobics like nobody’s business. The two women were fast friends now, relishing their daily sessions in the pool along with a shared interest in a set of mutual great-grandkids. And once the aerobics session was over, they often returned to Bob and Edie’s apartment for what Betsy and Edie both referred to as “forenoon coffee.”
Right that moment, Bob wasn’t ready to face either one of them. It was going to be hard enough to tell Edie about the situation. Doing so in front of a third party was utterly unthinkable. Besides, what Bob really wanted to do was track down Dan Frazier and punch the guy in the nose—or, at the very least, give the jerk a piece of his mind.
Standing up, Bob grabbed his keys off the table by the door, and headed for the vintage ’72 Bronco that—due to his skill as a mechanic—still ran like a top. Bob’s aging Bronco and Dan Frazier’s recently purchased Mustang were only six years apart in terms of model years, but no one would mistake Bob’s workhorse vehicle for a showpiece. The Mustang was a low-mileage, highly polished, spoiled brat of a car, best used in fair-weather conditions only. The Bronco, on the other hand, dented but dependable, was a one-owner, fourwheel-drive beast that had gotten Bob out of more than one tricky offroad situation. If the odometer—the one thing that didn’t work—had still been functioning, Bob estimated it would have turned over for the fourth time well before this.
Not wanting to encounter the women on their way into the building, Bob double-timed it down the hall in the opposite direction and let himself outside through a side entrance near his assigned covered parking spot. As he drove the few miles and many roundabouts on his way to Dan’s place on the far side of town, Bob realized this was probably a fool’s errand. Jason McKinzie had most likely run for the hills well in advance of the collapse, and Dan Frazier might have pulled a similar stunt. Still, going to Dan’s place gave Bob a good excuse for not facing Edie right then and there and having to give her the bad news.
Dan Frazier’s Sedona residence on Elberta Drive was modest in terms of Sedona’s current real estate market, which tended toward the McMansion end of the housing spectrum. The house dated from an earlier time in his career, from when Dan had just started working for his father’s insurance agency, and from an earlier era in terms of housing design. The in-town location meant it was long on convenience and had reasonably good views. Still, this one was little more than humble pie when compared to the spectacular hillside residence Millie and Dan occupied in Paradise Valley. That one came complete with a four-car garage. The one in Sedona was two cars only.
Once Bob turned off onto Elberta Drive, he stopped two houses short of the recently installed rolling gate at the bottom of Dan’s driveway. For a time—a period of several minutes—Bob simply sat there with the car windows open and the engine running, trying to consider what the hell he was going to say to this man who had once been his friend: How could you do this to us? How dare you do this? What the hell kind of friend are you? None of those seemed adequate to the situation at hand.
At last, having had time to cool his temper and resolving to remain civil, Bob finally put the Bronco in gear and moved forward. Arriving at the end of the driveway, he was surprised to see Dan’s rolling gate standing wide open. It was one of those that required the use of a remote. Installed after the purchase of that prized Mustang, Bob never remembered seeing it left open before—day or night.
As Bob crested the driveway and jammed the Bronco into park, one of the two garage doors began to rise. Once it was open, Bob saw that two cars were parked inside—Dan’s Mustang and Millie’s Volvo XV60. He more than half expected that one or the other of the vehicles, unaware of Bob’s presence, would slam into gear and come speeding out of the garage. Realizing that any resulting collision was bound to be harder on either of Dan’s upscale vehicles than it would be on the aging Bronco, Bob braced for a crash.
Except nothing happened. Neither of the two vehicles moved. The backup lights didn’t come on, and there was no sign of life inside the garage. After waiting for the better part of a minute for someone to emerge, Bob finally gave up, shut off the engine, and exited his own vehicle. Only when he entered the garage did he hear the low rumble of the Mustang’s idling V-8 engine, but no driver was visible behind the wheel.
“Hey, Dan,” Bob called. “Are you in there?”
For a time there was no answer, then, over the hum of the engine, he heard a faint call. “Help me. Please.”
The call for help seemed to be coming from the car, so Bob sprinted forward. Only when he was even with the Mustang’s driver’s side door did Bob realize there was a lone occupant inside the vehicle. Dan, seated behind the wheel, was slumped over onto the passenger seat in an unnatural position that left none of his head showing over the seat back. Both of Dan’s eyes had vivid bruises around them, standing in sharp contrast to the pasty gray coloring of face. His lips were cut and swollen. Someone had clearly beaten the crap out of the man. Then Bob’s eyes were drawn to the bright scarlet stain spreading up and down a once spotless white shirt. Dan held one hand tightly against the wound, as if trying to stem the flow, but it wasn’t working.
Bob had served as a corpsman in Vietnam. He knew his way around bloody wounds, and he knew way too much blood when he saw it. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and dialed 911. “We need help!” he barked into the phone when an emergency operator answered. “Man down and seriously wounded. Can’t tell if he’s been gunshot or if it’s a knife wound.”
“Knife,” Dan managed weakly through clenched teeth. “They both had knives.”
“Make that a knife wound,” Bob corrected. “And there were two of them.” With his phone still on speaker, Bob spat out Dan’s address. Then, with the call still active, he slipped the device into his shirt pocket, freeing both hands so he could reach inside, hoping to help apply pressure on the wound even though he already suspected that the damage was too severe. The wound was bleeding profusely. The stain was spreading at such an alarming rate that Bob doubted it was survivable.
“Do you know who did this?” he asked. “Where are they? What happened?”
“Tried to go for help,” Dan mumbled weakly, batting away Bob’s suddenly bloodied hand. “Go check on Millie,” he urged. “Please!”
“Millie?” Bob asked. “Where is she?”
“House. She’s in the house.”
“Help is coming,” Bob assured Dan as he backed away. “I’ll go check on her.”
After first switching off the Mustang’s engine, Bob raced into the house through a door that opened from the garage directly into the laundry room. There were bloodied footprints staggering from side to side and leading from the kitchen into the garage, and there were bloodied smears across the faces of both the washer and dryer as well as on the opposite wall. Most likely Dan had come this way, in a desperate attempt either to escape the carnage or to summon help. Bob registered the stains on the floor and reflexively tried to dodge them, but he was too focused on moving fast to avoid them entirely.
Once through the laundry room, he came to an abrupt halt and stood aghast and unmoving in the kitchen doorway. Millie Frazier lay facedown in the center of the room in a rapidly expanding pool of blood.
Horror-struck, Bob didn’t know what to do first. Should he check for a pulse that most likely wasn’t there or simply retreat the way he had come? Then, in the sudden silence, a tiny voice spoke to him from his pocket. “Sir, are you still there? Emergency units are on the way.”
“There are two victims,” he said. “The one in the garage, a male, is a stabbing victim, and the one in the house is a woman. She’s been stabbed, too. The man’s still alive. I think this one’s already dead.”
That was the moment when Millie Frazier shuddered. Until then, Bob had been sure she was dead. Darting across the room to where she lay, he slipped in pooled blood and fell forward. When he came to rest, he was lying facedown on the injured woman’s back. Appalled that he might have exacerbated her wounds, he heaved himself off her and scooted to a spot where his face was near hers, close enough so she could see him.
“Can you hear me?” he asked.
Her eyes blinked open, but they were dazed and out of focus.
“It’s me, Millie. Bob Larson. I’ve called 911. Help is on the way. They’ll be here soon. Who did this to you?”
For a moment her eyes seemed to register recognition. “Bob?” she mumbled. “Where’s Dan?”
“Out in the garage,” Bob answered. “He’s still alive.”
“He’s a good man,” she whispered. “Tell him I love him. Be sure to tell him that.”
The focus faded from her eyes. Her impossibly shallow breathing became even more so.
“Stay with me,” Bob pleaded, taking her hand and willing her to live. “You’ve got to hang in here. Help will be here soon.”
He could see, though, that it was already too late. After a moment, eyes that had blinked open at the sound of his voice stared emptily into space. Bob checked again for a pulse. This time there wasn’t any. Scrambling to his feet, he slipped and fell to his knees. He had to grab hold of the countertop to pull himself back upright. Once on his feet, he dashed out of the room the same way he had entered.
In the garage, he leaned into the car and then stepped away once more. The wail of oncoming sirens cut through the silence, but Bob knew the EMTs would be too late twice over. Millie Frazier was gone, and so was her husband. The tiny voice of the emergency operator was still speaking to him from his pocket, demanding an update. Reaching for the phone, he simply ended the call, paying no attention to the bloody prints his fingers left on the face of his phone.
With sickening clarity, Bob Larson understood that once the cops arrived, they would find three bloodied people at the residence. Only one of them would be alive—the guy who had called it in—and he was the one who would most likely turn into the prime suspect.
Author Genre: Mystery & Thrillers
Website: J.A. Jance
Author's Blog: J.A. Jance - NYT Bestselling Author
Twitter: @JAJance
E-Mail: jajance@jance.com
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Amazon Author Profile
Author Description: J.A. Jance is the top 10 New York Times bestselling author of the Joanna Brady series; the J. P. Beaumont series; four interrelated thrillers featuring the Walker family; and eight books featuring Ali Reynolds.
As a second-grader in Mrs. Spangler’s Greenway School class, I was introduced to Frank Baum’s Wizard of Oz series. I read the first one and was hooked and knew, from that moment on, that I wanted to be a writer.
The third child in a large family, I was four years younger than my next older sister and four years older than the next younger sibling. Being both too young and too old left me alone in a crowd and helped turn me into an introspective reader and a top student. When I graduated from Bisbee High School in 1962, I received an academic scholarship that made me the first person in my family to attend a four year college. I graduated in 1966 with a degree in English and Secondary Education. In 1970 I received my M. Ed. In Library Science. I taught high school English at Tucson’s Pueblo High School for two years and was a K-12 librarian at Indian Oasis School District in Sells, Arizona for five years.
My ambitions to become a writer were frustrated in college and later, first because the professor who taught creative writing at the University of Arizona in those days thought girls "ought to be teachers or nurses" rather than writers. After he refused me admission to the program, I did the next best thing: I married a man who was allowed in the program that was closed to me. My first husband imitated Faulkner and Hemingway primarily by drinking too much and writing too little. Despite the fact that he was allowed in the creative writing program, he never had anything published either prior to or after his death from chronic alcoholism at age forty-two. That didn’t keep him from telling me, however, that there would be only one writer in our family, and he was it.
My husband made that statement in 1968 after I had received a favorable letter from an editor in New York who was interested in publishing a children’s story I had written. Because I was a newly wed wife who was interested in staying married, I put my writing ambitions on hold. Other than writing poetry in the dark of night when my husband was asleep (see After the Fire), I did nothing more about writing fiction until eleven years later when I was a single, divorced mother with two children and no child support as well as a full time job selling life insurance. My first three books were written between four a.m. and seven a.m.. At seven, I would wake my children and send them off to school. After that, I would get myself ready to go sell life insurance.
I started writing in the middle of March of 1982. The first book I wrote, a slightly fictionalized version of a series of murders that happened in Tucson in 1970, was never published. For one thing, it was twelve hundred pages long. Since I was never allowed in the creative writing classes, no one had ever told me there were some things I needed to leave out. For another, the editors who turned it down said that the parts that were real were totally unbelievable, and the parts that were fiction were fine. My agent finally sat me down and told me that she thought I was a better writer of fiction than I was of non-fiction. Why, she suggested, didn’t I try my hand at a novel?
The result of that conversation was the first Detective Beaumont book, Until Proven Guilty. Since 1985 when that was published, there have been 21 more Beau books. My work also includes 14 Joanna Brady books set in southeastern Arizona where I grew up, and seven Ali Reynolds books, set in Sedona, AZ. In addition there are four thrillers, starting with Hour of the Hunter and Kiss of the Bees, that reflect what I learned during the years when I was teaching on the Tohono O’Odham reservation west of Tucson, Arizona.
The week before Until Proven Guilty was published, I did a poetry reading of After the Fire at a widowed retreat sponsored by a group called WICS (Widowed Information Consultation Services) of King County. By June of 1985, it was five years after my divorce in 1980 and two years after my former husband’s death. I went to the retreat feeling as though I hadn’t quite had my ticket punched and didn’t deserve to be there. After all, the other people there were all still married when their spouses died. I was divorced. At the retreat I met a man whose wife had died of breast cancer two years to the day and within a matter of minutes of the time my husband died. We struck up a conversation based on that coincidence. Six months later, to the dismay of our five children, we told the kids they weren’t the Brady Bunch, but they'd do, and we got married. We now have four new in-laws as well as six grandchildren.
When my second husband and I first married, he supported all of us–his kids and mine as well as the two of us. It was a long time before my income from writing was anything more than fun money–the Improbable Cause trip to Walt Disney World; the Minor in Possession memorial powder room; the Payment in Kind memorial hot tub. Eventually, however, the worm turned. My husband was able to retire at age 54 and took up golf and oil painting.
One of the wonderful things about being a writer is that everything–even the bad stuff–is usable. The eighteen years I spent while married to an alcoholic have helped shape the experience and character of Detective J. P. Beaumont. My experiences as a single parent have gone into the background for Joanna Brady–including her first tentative steps toward a new life after the devastation of losing her husband in Desert Heat. And then there’s the evil creative writing professor in Hour of the Hunter and Kiss of the Bees, but that’s another story.
Another wonderful part of being a writer is hearing from fans. I learned on the reservation that the ancient, sacred charge of the storyteller is to beguile the time. I’m thrilled when I hear that someone has used my books to get through some particularly difficult illness either as a patient or as they sit on the sidelines while someone they love is terribly ill. It gratifies me to know that by immersing themselves in my stories, people are able to set their own lives aside and live and walk in someone else’s shoes. It tells me I’m doing a good job at the best job in the world.
Author's Book List
Cold Betrayal
- An Ali Reynolds NovelRevenge isn’t the only dish served cold...
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.
Meanwhile, married life agrees with Ali. But any hopes that she and her husband, B. Simpson, will finally slow down and relax now that they’ve tied the knot are dashed when Ali’s new daughter-in-law approaches her, desperate for help. The girl’s grandmother, Betsy, is in danger: she’s been receiving anonymous threats, and someone even broke into her home and turned on the gas burners in the middle of the night. But the local police think the elderly woman’s just not as sharp as she used to be.
While Ali struggles to find a way to protect Betsy before it’s too late, Sister Anselm needs her help as well, and the two race the clock to uncover the secrets that The Family has hidden for so long—before someone comes back to bury them forever.
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A Last Goodbye
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. But what she finds is more than just a shaggy dog story…Bella’s elderly owner has vanished, and her son seems to be behind it. So it’s Ali and B. to the rescue—and still making it to the church on time!
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Remains of Innocence
- Joanna Brady Mysteries Book 16Sheriff Joanna Brady must solve two perplexing cases that may be tied together in New York Times bestselling 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.
Tracing the money’s origins will take Liza on a journey that will end in Cochise County, where Sheriff Joanna Brady is embroiled in a personal mystery of her own. A man she considers a family friend is found dead at the bottom of a hole in a limestone cavern near Bisbee. And now there is the mystery of Liza and the money. Are the two disparate cases connected? It’s up to Joanna to find out.
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The Old Blue Line
- – A Joanna Brady NovellaButch Dixon has been taken for a ride …
Not a jump in the car, see the sights kind of ride. He's been taken for everything he has. He's lost his house, his restaurant business, his savings, his car, his best friend, his faith—all to his conniving ex-wife. But that was seven years ago. He picked himself up, left Chicago, and started over in Peoria, Arizona, running the Roundhouse Bar and Grill. He doesn't look back on those bad years; there's no point. Not until two curious cops show up at the Roundhouse.
Faith, Butch's ex-wife, has been murdered, and the evidence points to him. Stunned, Butch quickly realizes that the black-hearted woman is going to ruin him again, from her grave. Lucky for Butch, the Old Blue Line, a group of retired—but still sharp and tenacious—former legal and law enforcement coots, have taken it upon themselves, as a favor, to make sure he doesn't cross that thin line. After the dust settles, Butch's life is again upended—when a little red-haired ball of fire, Sheriff Joanna Brady, takes a seat at his bar.
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Moving Target
- A Novel -Ali ReynoldsWhen police academy-trained former reporter Ali Reynolds embarks on a trip to England with her longtime household assistant and right-hand man Leland Brooks, her greatest concern is helping her friend face his long-estranged family. Yet, Ali soon finds herself investigating violent crimes spanning two continents and eras—as vicious attacks unfold in Texas and an unsolved murder from 1950s Bournemouth, Leland’s hometown, resurfaces.
Near Austin, Lance Tucker, an incarcerated juvenile offender and talented computer hacker, is set on fire and severely burned while hanging Christmas decorations in the rec room. Ali’s fiancé, B. Simpson, is founder of the high-tech security company High Noon Enterprises, which helped put Lance in lockup. B. feels obliged to get to the bottom of what happened and, with Ali otherwise occupied overseas, turns to someone else to help out: Ali’s good friend and Taser-carrying nun, Sister Anselm.
Meanwhile, Ali crosses paths with some unsavory characters with plenty to hide when she begins to investigate the decades-old, cold case murder of Jonah Brooks, Leland’s father. The two cases of Brooks and Lance Tucker seem unconnected and faraway at first, separated by time and an ocean—until Ali nearly fatally veers off of an English roadway at the mercy of an unidentified man interested in Lance Tucker’s computer hacking skills. It is clear that B. isn’t the only one captivated by Lance’s ability to surf the “dark web” unnoticed.
With unsolved murders on both sides of the Atlantic, Moving Target finds Ali, B., and Sister Anselm united again in sleuthing—and in mortal danger.
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Second Watch
- A J. P. Beaumont NovelWith Second Watch, New York Times bestselling author J. A. Jance delivers another thought-provoking novel of suspense starring Seattle investigator J. P. Beaumont.
Getting old is hell! J. P. Beaumont is finally taking some time off to have his knee replacement surgery. But instead of taking his mind off work, the operation plunges him into one of the most perplexing and mind-blowing mysteries he's ever faced.
A series of dreams take him back to his early days on the force at Seattle P.D. and then, even earlier, to his days in Vietnam, reminding him of people and events he hasn't thought about in years.
His past collides with his present in this complex and thrilling story that explores loss and heartbreak, duty and honor, and, most importantly, the staggering cost of war and the debts we owe those who served in the Vietnam War, and those in uniform today.
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After the Fire
I’m sure more than a few of the dyed-in-the wool mystery readers are thinking–a book of poetry? What’s she smoking? Why would I want to read POETRY? With After the Fire, you’ll get a no-holds-barred view of the emotional forge that turned me into who I am. If my pen name wasn’t J.A. Jance, I might have to opt for Phoenix Jance, because the person I am today rose from those ashes. After the Fire is my autobiography, but reading it will give you some insights into the origins of some of my characters, too, as well as an understanding about the themes of some of my books. The cover is lovely. It looks like an all-occasion-greeting card for people in tough circumstances, whose lives are being adversely impacted by drugs and alcohol or by the loss of a spouse to death or divorce. It’s also a book that comes with a real message of hope. It would be WONDERFUL, if that little book of poetry managed to outstrip ALL of the publisher’s expectations! And for those of you who do audio books, I spent yesterday recording the audio version of After the Fire, and that should also be available on September 10. That way you can go to a poetry reading in the privacy of your own iTunes account!
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Judgment Call
- A Brady Novel of SuspenseThe New York Times bestselling master of mystery and suspense, J.A. Jance—whom the Chattanooga Times ranks “among the best, if not the best”—brings back her enormously popular series protagonist, Cochise County Sheriff Joanna Brady.
With Judgment Call, Jance achieves a new high in crime fiction, as Brady wrestles with her conflicting roles of law officer and mother when her daughter discovers the murdered body of the local high school principal, and the ensuing investigation reveals secrets no parent wants to hear. At once a breathtaking recreation of the rugged landscape of the American Southwest, a moving story of a mother’s concerns for her endangered child, and thrilling masterwork of brutal crime and expert detection, Judgment Call is prime J.A. Jance, a treat for anyone who loves a good cop story wrapped around a superior family drama.
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Deadly Stakes
- Ali ReynoldsA thrilling mystery from New York Times bestselling author J.A. Jance starring Ali Reynolds, who finds herself working against the police to clear two innocent names…with deadly stakes.
In Deadly Stakes, police academy-trained former reporter Ali Reynolds is contacted to investigate the grisly murder of a gold-digging divorcee on behalf of a woman accused of the crime. Lynn Martinson is dating the dead woman’s ex-husband, and she and her boyfriend Chip Ralston have been charged.
Ali is simultaneously drawn to the case of A.J. Sanders, a frightened teen with secrets of his own. He’s the first to find the body in the Camp Verde desert when he goes to retrieve a mysterious buried box hidden by his absent father—a box that turns out to be filled with hundreds of thousands of dollars in poker chips.
When the body of an ex-con is discovered near the first crime scene, Ali struggles to determine if A.J. and Lynn’s cases are related. Though her friends in the police department grow increasingly irritated by her involvement with the cases, Ali must stop a deadly killer from claiming another victim…before she herself is lost in this game of deadly stakes.
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Left for Dead
- Ali Reynolds MysteriesNot even Ali Reynolds is immune to the escalating drug wars just across the border as two ruthless crimes threaten to bring her face-to-face with a cold-blooded killer.
When one of Ali’s former Arizona Police Academy classmates is gunned down and left to die, he is at first assumed to be an innocent victim of the violent drug cartels. But the crime scene investigation reveals there’s much more to the story. Summoned to his hospital bedside, Ali finds it hard to believe he’s mixed up in the drug trade, and she also meets another seriously injured victim—an unidentified young woman, presumed to be an illegal border crosser, who was raped and savagely beaten. Ali is determined to seek justice in both cases. But as she zeroes in on the truth, the real killer is lining her up in the crosshairs. . . .
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Paradise Lost
- A Brady Novel of SuspenseThe desecrated body of a missing Phoenix heiress lies naked, lifeless, and abandoned in the desolate beauty and lonely terror of the high desert night. A hideous crime is inviting death once more into Sheriff Joanna Brady's world. But this time the nightmares of her professional and personal lives are intertwining in ways too awful to contemplate, because one corpse is only the first piece in a twisted and sinister puzzle in which nothing seems to fit. And the next item on a killer's bloody agenda may well be Brady's own beloved daughter.
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Breach of Duty
- A J. P. Beaumont NovelThe end of the old woman's long life came suddenly. She died in her home, torched to death by a fiend with an unknown motive. While Seattle is undergoing unwelcome upscale change, it is strictly on the surface, as the Grim Reaper still lives in the shadows of the city. And it falls to Homicide Detective J.P. Beaumont and his new partner, Sue Danielson, to get to the bottom of his latest handiwork. But the trail will lead to places and events that will leave two police officers and their cases shattered—and nothing will ever be the same again.
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Birds of Prey
The Starfire Breeze steams its way north toward the Gulf of Alaska, buffeted by crisp sea winds blowing down from the Arctic. Those on board are seeking peace, relaxation, adventure, escape. But there is no escape in this place of unspoiled natural majesty. Because terror strolls the decks even in the brilliant light of day . . . and death is a conspicuous, unwelcome passenger. Former Seattle policeman J.P. Beaumont—a damaged homicide detective who has come here to heal from fresh, stinging wounds—will find that the grim ghosts pursuing him were not left behind . . . as a pleasure cruise gone horribly wrong carries him into lethal, ever-darkening waters.
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Exit Wounds
- Brady NovelsThe intense desert heat has brought horror to a small corner of the Southwest. A body lies lifeless in an airless trailer, surrounded by seventeen others. It is a crime unspeakable in its conception and execution—a nightmare strangely connected to a grisly slaughter in a neighboring state, where the corpses of two women are found tied up, naked, and gruesomely posed on a rancher's land. A day that started out hot has already turned blistering for Joanna Brady, the sheriff of Cochise County, Arizona, for terror has moved into her small town to stay. And the nightmare will not end until she uncovers the roots of a monstrous obsession buried somewhere in the most frightening dark shadows of the past.
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Edge of Evil
- Alison ReynoldWith a divorce from her cheating husband of ten years pending and her high-profile broadcasting career abruptly ended by TV executives who wanted a "younger face," Alison Reynolds feels there's nothing keeping her in LA any longer. Summoned back home to Sedona, Arizona, by the death of a childhood friend, she seeks solace in the comforting rhythms of her parents' diner, the Sugarloaf Café, and launches an on-line blog as therapy for others who have been similarly cut loose.
But when threatening posts begin appearing, Ali finds out that running a blog is far more up-close and personal—and far more dangerous—than sitting behind a news desk. Suddenly something dark and deadly is swirling around her life. And now Ali is a target…and marked for death.
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Betrayal of Trust
- J. P. Beaumont #19“Murder, teenage bullying, sleazy adults, and good police work add up to another fine entry by Jance.” —The Oklahoman
Betrayal of Trust is the twentieth mystery by New York Times bestseller J.A. Jance to feature Seattle p.i. J. P. Beaumont—and it is another surefire winner from the author the Chattanooga Times calls, “One of the best—if not the best.” When Beau discovers a snuff film recorded on a smart phone—a horrific crime that has a devastating effect on two troubled teens—his investigation unleashes a firestorm that blazes all the way up through the halls of Washington state government. Betrayal of Trust is certain to win this phenomenal crime fiction master (“In the elite company of Sue Grafton and Patricia Cornwell”—Flint Journal) a wealth of new fans while enthralling the army of devoted readers already addicted to the potent Jance magic.
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Fatal Error
- A NovelNew York Times bestselling author J.A. Jance delivers another pulse-pounding tale of suspense where no one is safe from a . . .FATAL ERROR.
Ali Reynolds begins the summer thinking her most difficult challenge will be surviving a six-week- long course as the lone forty-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. However, when Brenda Riley, a colleague from Ali’s old news broadcasting days in California, shows up in town with an alcohol problem and an unlikely story about a missing fiancé, Ali reluctantly agrees to help.
The man posing as Brenda’s fiancé is revealed to be Richard Lowensdale, a cyber-sociopath who has left a trail of broken hearts in his virtual wake. When he is viciously murdered, the women he once victimized are considered suspects. The police soon focus their investigation on Brenda, who is already known to have broken into Richard’s home and computer before vanishing without a trace. Attempting to clear her friend’s name, Ali is quickly drawn into a web of online intrigue that may lead to a real-world fatal error.
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Payment in Kind
- A J.P. Beaumont NovelA riveting novel of dark secrets and murderous rage featuring Seattle detective J.P. Beaumont from the New York Times bestselling author of Betrayal of Trust
In death, they were entwined like lovers—a man and a woman hideously slaughtered, then stuffed into a closet in the Seattle School District building. But what appears a cut-and-dried crime of passion, complete with an ideal prime suspect, goes deeper than investigating detective J.P. Beaumont could ever have imagined. For an accused betrayed husband is keeping something shocking carefully hidden, a terrifying truth that’s hotter and more sordid than extramarital sex. And some secrets are more lethal than murder.
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Improbable Cause
- A J.P. Beaumont NovelA spellbinding tale of twisted depravity and blood vengeance featuring Seattle detective J.P. Beaumont from the New York Times bestselling author of Betrayal of Trust
Improbable Cause
Perhaps it was fitting justice: a dentist who enjoyed inflicting pain was murdered in his own chair. The question is not who wanted Dr. Frederick Nielsen dead, but rather who of the many finally reached the breaking point. The sordid details of this case, with its shocking revelations of violence, cruelty, and horrific sexual abuse, would be tough for any investigator to stomach. But for Seattle Homicide Detective J.P. Beaumont, the most damning piece of the murderous puzzle will shake him to his very core—because what will be revealed to him is nothing less than the true meaning of unrepentant evil.
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Dismissed with Prejudice
- J. P. Beaumont NovelA gripping tale of hatred, lies, and deadly traditionfeaturing Seattle detective J.P. Beaumont from the New York Times bestselling author of Betrayal of Trust
Dismissed with Prejudice
The blood at the scene belies any suggestion of an “honorable death.” Yet, to the eyes of the Seattle police, a successful Japanese software magnate died exactly as he wished—and by his own hand, according to the ancient rite of seppuku. Homicide Detective J.P. Beaumont can’t dismiss what he sees as an elaborate suicide, however, not when something about it makes his flesh crawl. Because small errors in the ritual suggest something darker: a killer who will go to extraordinary lengths to escape detection—a fiend with a less traditional passion . . . For cold-blooded murder.
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Minor in Possession
- A J.P. Beaumont NovelA gripping story of buried truths, deceit, and sudden, brutal death featuring Seattle detective J.P. Beaumont fromthe New York Times bestselling author of Betrayal of Trust
Minor in Possession
All manner of sinners and sufferers come to the rehab ranch in Arizona when they hit rock bottom. For Seattle detective J.P. Beaumont, there is a deeper level of Hell here: being forced to room with teenage drug dealer Joey Rothman. An all-around punk, Joey deserves neither pity nor tears—until he is murdered by a bullet fired from Beaumont’s gun. Someone has set Beau up brilliantly for a long and terrifying fall, dragging the alcoholic ex-cop into a conspiracy of blood and lies that could cost him his freedom . . . And his life.
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A More Perfect Union
- J. P. Beaumont NovelsA shattering tale of corruption and homicide featuring Seattle detective J.P. Beaumont from the New York Times bestselling author of Betrayal of Trust
More Perfect Union
A shocking photo screamed from the front pages of the tabloids—the last moments of a life captured for all the world to see. The look of sheer terror eternally frozen on the face of the doomed woman indicated that her fatal fall from an upper story of an unfinished Seattle skyscraper was no desperate suicide—and that look will forever haunt Homicide Detective J.P. Beaumont. But his hunt for answers and justice is leading to more death, and to dark and terrible secrets scrupulously guarded by men of steel behind the locked doors of a powerful union that extracts its dues payments in blood.
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Justice Denied
- J. P. Beaumont NovelThe murder of an ex-drug dealer ex-con—gunned down on his mother's doorstep—seems just another turf war fatality. Why then has Seattle homicide investigator J.P. Beaumont been instructed to keep this assignment hush-hush? Meanwhile, Beau's lover and fellow cop, Mel Soames, is involved in her own confidential investigation. Registered sex offenders from all over Washington State are dying at an alarming rate—and not all due to natural causes. A metropolis the size of Seattle holds its fair share of brutal crime, corruption, and dirty little secrets. But when the separate trails they're following begin to shockingly intertwine, Beau and Mel realize that they have stumbled onto something bigger and more frightening than they anticipated—a deadly conspiracy that's leading them to lofty places they should not enter . . . and may not be allowed to leave alive.
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