The HBS Author's Spotlight SHOWCASES New York Times bestselling author J.A. Jance's New Book: Man Overboard Author J.A. "Judith" Jance is best known for the Joanna Brady series and the J. P. Beaumont series.
You can view Ms. Jance’s Launch Schedule for Man Overboard at her
website.
Man Overboard
Ali Reynolds Series Book 12
Author: J.A. Jance
AVAILABLE
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
KOBO Store
Audible
Two tech geniuses face off—one intent on saving lives, the other on ending them.
Cybersecurity expert Roger McGeary finally has his life back on track after years of struggling with depression. But when he falls from the balcony of his suite on an all-expenses-paid cruise, the police quickly dismiss it as “death by misadventure,” a vague phrase leaving much to interpretation.
Unsatisfied, Roger’s tough-as-nails aunt, Julia Miller, is determined to find answers and closure. By contacting Roger’s childhood friend Stuart Ramey to help her solve the mystery of his fate, Julia unwittingly sets up a collision course with a serial killer.
Stuart, his sidekick Cami Lee, and journalist turned amateur sleuth Ali Reynolds put the full resources of cutting edge online security firm High Noon Enterprises into learning the truth about Roger’s death. With Cami on the high seas investigating the ship from which Roger disappeared, Stuart stays tied to his computer, locked in a battle of wits and technology against an unusually twisted adversary. Aided by Frigg, an artificial intelligence companion of his own creation, the killer targets victims who have lost parents to suicide and attempts to drive them to the same tragic end.
When the heartless killer and his cyber accomplice set their sights on Stuart, High Noon must race against time to save him and countless others.
Excerpt from Man Overboard
As the cruise ship rocked and rolled in open water, Roger McGeary stood in front of the mirror and tried for the fourteenth time to tie his damned bow tie. He had looked up the directions on the Internet and watched the demo through to the end, but that wasn’t much help.
He knew for sure it was his fourteenth attempt because that was something Roger always did—always had to do—he counted things. His arms ached. His hands shook. Beads of sweat had popped out on his brow, and the underarms of his freshly starched and pressed dress shirt were soaked through as well. A glance at the clock told him he was already ten minutes late to meet up with the girls in the bar for a predinner beverage.
When the doorbell to his stateroom buzzed, he gave up, dropped the ends of the still untied tie, and pounded the dresser top in frustration. The blow sent one of his cuff links skittering across the polished wood surface and onto the carpeted floor, where it immediately disappeared from view under the bed. Roger was on his hands and knees searching for the missing cuff link when Reynaldo, his cabin butler, stuck his head around the doorjamb.
“Turndown service,” he announced. “Or would you rather I come back at another time?”
“No,” Roger muttered. “Now’s fine.”
“Can I help you with something?” Reynaldo asked solicitously.
“I’ve lost my damned cuff link, and I can’t for the life of me tie my damned tie.”
Crouching at the foot of the bed, Reynaldo quickly retrieved the missing cuff link and dropped it into Roger’s over-sized fist. Leaning on the bed, Roger heaved himself upright. “Thanks,” he said. “Appreciate it.” And he did.
“As for the tie,” Reynaldo offered, “I’d be happy to help with that and with the cuff links as well.”
Feeling embarrassed and self-conscious at his own obvious incompetence, Roger surrendered himself to Reynaldo’s ministrations. It took only a matter of seconds and a few deft movements on Reynaldo’s part before the tie was properly tied.
The butler stood back for a moment to admire his handiwork. “Cuff links next,” he said, and Roger handed them over. Once the cuff links were fastened, Reynaldo retrieved the jacket from the bed and held it up so Roger could slip into it. The jacket settled smoothly onto Roger’s massive shoulders as though it had been made for him—because it had. Aunt Julia had seen to that.
“You’re going on a cruise, Rog,” she had told him. “You’ll need a tux for formal nights on board, and by God you’re going to have one.” A lifetime’s worth of experience had taught Roger that arguing with Aunt Julia was a losing proposition. He’d gone straight out and ordered the tux. At Aunt Julia’s urging he’d also invested in a new sport coat and some big-and-tall dress shirts as well.
“After all,” Aunt Julia had counseled, “it’s a two-week cruise. You can’t go down to the dining room in the same thing night after night.”
The big-and-tall shirts were necessary because Roger was a big man. Standing next to him, Reynaldo was tiny by comparison. Once the jacket was properly in place, the butler reached up and dusted off a tiny speck of lint before giving Roger an approving nod.
“Very good, sir,” Reynaldo said. “Take a look in the mirror.”
Turning back to face the mirror where he’d spent the better part of forty-five minutes battling with the tie, Roger McGeary was startled to see the reflection staring back at him. He looked . . . well . . . good.
He’d never worn a tux before. Members of the Dungeons & Dragons Club back in high school weren’t the kind of kids who went to proms or homecoming dances. And if they did somehow get around to getting married eventually, they didn’t do so with a full contingent of bridesmaids and groomsmen. When there had been geeky weddings in Roger’s circle of acquaintances, he himself had never been called upon to perform bridal party duties. And so, at the ripe old age of forty and a half, he was astonished to see that the tux made all the difference.
Of course, his shoulder-length hair—still mostly brown but beginning to go gray—was maybe a bit incongruous with the tux, but it was too late to do anything about that now. Besides, Roger had worn his hair that way from the moment he turned twelve and realized that having a son with shoulder-length hair was something that drove his father nuts. Anything that bugged the hell out of James McGeary was exactly what his son would do.
Roger grinned at Reynaldo. “Thanks for your help,” he said.
“Don’t mention it, sir,” the butler replied, beginning the turndown process. “That’s why I’m here.”
That was something else his old D & D pals would find astonishing— Roger McGeary on a cruise? In a stateroom with a damned butler? Get out!
Feeling somewhat jaunty, Roger stopped long enough to pull his cell phone off the charger and slip it into his jacket pocket. Earlier when he’d been looking for directions on the tie, he’d noticed that the charge was lower than it should have been, and he’d plugged it in while he was showering and shaving. If the phone was losing its ability to hold a charge, he’d need to go looking for a new one once he got back home.
Roger took the phone along with him to dinner more out of force of habit than because he was expecting calls. After all, he was on vacation, and his office in San Jose, California, was many time zones away. Letting himself out of the cabin, he started toward the elevator lobby. He’d taken only a few steps when a sudden pitch sent him bouncing off first one wall and then the other.
It’s the English Channel, after all, he told himself. What do you expect?
His stateroom was fairly well aft. As he tottered down the long corridor, he couldn’t help thinking again of the kids he’d hung out with back in high school. The only one he still stayed in touch with—sometimes by text and occasionally by running into each other at cyber security conferences—was Stu Ramey, the guy who had once been Roger’s best friend. They had met up in Adams Junior High—junior prison, as they called it.
Smart, overweight, and both wearing glasses, Roger and Stu had bonded immediately. From junior high on, the nerdy outsiders had been bullied and disparagingly referred to by their classmates as Tweedledum and Tweedledee. That was in Phoenix, where at least he’d had a friend or two. Once his mother pulled up stakes, moved Roger to L.A., and dumped him into the zoo that was Sepulveda High School for his senior year, he’d had no friends at all, and he had been utterly lost.
It was hardly surprising that Roger had never attended any of his high school class reunions. He’d still been locked up in a mental health facility in Napa for his tenth. As for the twentieth? Thanks to Aunt Julia, he’d been back on his feet by then and had actually received an invitation to the one in L.A., but he’d had no interest in attending. He had no friends or happy memories from Sepulveda High, and he doubted anyone from back there remembered him, either. As for South Phoenix High? Kids who had come to the school via the special ed route hadn’t exactly been welcomed with open arms. He supposed he could have crashed that reunion, but since his only friend at the time had been Stuart, there wasn’t much point.
As for Roger? Years of therapy hadn’t completely fixed his self-esteem issues or his overweening insecurities, either, although seeing himself in the mirror in his tux was maybe further progress. And the next time he saw Stu, he’d have to ask him about the reunion situation. Maybe Stuart Ramey had more balls than Roger did. Maybe he’d gone back and braved the ravening horde—arrogant jocks, perky cheerleaders, and all.
In the elevator lobby, Roger stepped aside for a couple heading back the way he’d come. The woman had a decidedly green cast to her skin, and she clung to her companion’s arm with something close to a death grip. Roger thanked his lucky stars that he wasn’t prone to motion sickness and wondered if any of the girls were, either.
Calling his prospective dinner companions “girls” was a bit of a misnomer. For one thing, they were all north of sixty—possibly even north of seventy—but very well preserved. In the dining room the previous evening, the first night of the cruise, their four-top table had been next to his two-top by the window. As the wine flowed and plates of food came and went, they noticed that he was on his own. The next thing Roger knew, the three women had drawn him into conversation, asking where was he from, was he traveling solo, and what did he think of the cruise so far? By the time dinner was over, they had invited him to accompany them to the bar for an after-dinner drink, and before the evening ended—sometime after midnight—he had agreed to join them for the following night’s formal dinner.
Aunt Julia would have called them “classy old broads.” They were well dressed, well manicured, and no doubt well heeled. Roger had no doubt that the bits of jewelry on display were the real thing—diamonds as opposed to zirconium. So, although he was happy to have been included in their circle, he knew he was completely out of his element.
He didn’t mention to them or to anyone else on board that the two-week cruise, complete with his two-room suite and an attending butler, was a freebie. Roger had detected and successfully prevented a massive data breach that would have thrown the cruise ship line into a nightmare and disrupted their entire reservations system. Not only had he preempted the attack, he’d also managed to catch the culprit—a disgruntled former employee. As far as Shining Star Cruises was concerned, Roger McGeary was a hero, and they were prepared to treat him as such.
When Roger stepped off the elevator on deck five, he stood for a moment, staring in through the open doors of the ship’s piano bar, the Starlight Lounge. The place was crowded. The girls—Angie, Millie, and Dot—had managed to snag seats at the bar and were evidently holding a spot for him. The barman, a cheerful guy named Xavier, caught Roger’s eye as he stood in the entryway, nodded, and immediately turned to prepare Roger’s preferred beverage—Campari and soda—which was poured and in position in front of the single open stool before Roger made it across the room.
This was only the second night of the cruise, Roger noted, so how was it possible that Xavier recognized individual customers on sight and had already memorized their preferred beverages? Roger was entirely at home in the cyber world in front of keyboards and glowing computer screens, but Xavier’s people skills—his easy humor and pleasant gift of gab—were completely absent from Roger’s skill set. He’d never be able to be a bartender, never in a million years.
Dorothy Campbell, aka Dot, was a divorcée with a thick southern accent. A little slip of a thing, with brightly hennaed red hair and a slick black sheath dress, she was also the self-proclaimed ringleader of the group. Dot launched herself off her stool and tackled Roger, greeting him with an enthusiastic hug.
“My goodness gracious,” she said, looking him up and down. “If you don’t clean up nice.”
“Why, thank you, ma’am,” Roger replied, trying to match her accent with a sort of ersatz cowboy gallantry and then flushing in embarrassment because he felt like he’d already made a jackass of himself.
“You’re not just having Campari and soda, are you?” she demanded. “Shouldn’t you have something a little higher octane than that? How about joining us in a Kir Royale?”
That’s what the girls had been drinking at the bar the previous night, and that’s what they were having tonight as well. Roger wasn’t much of a drinker, and he didn’t do drugs, either—any kind of drugs other than his doctor-prescribed antidepressants—but he’d allowed himself to be persuaded. Once he’d made it back to the room the previous night, he’d looked up “Kir Royale,” which turned out to be a heady combo of champagne and crème de cassis. Roger had attempted to tell them that he couldn’t dance—wouldn’t dance. With a couple of Kir Royales under his belt, they had managed to cajole him onto the dance floor, sometimes with all three of them at once. By the time the girls had wished him good night, everybody had been flying high—Roger included.
“See you tomorrow,” Dot had admonished him, shaking a finger in his face on her way out. “Drinks in the bar at seven; dinner at sevenforty-five. Don’t be late.”
Xavier had watched the three women leave the bar and head tipsily for the elevator. Shaking his head in mock sympathy, he turned to Roger. “I believe you have your hands full, sir. Would you care for a refill?”
“Those were a little stiff for me,” Roger had told him. “I’d better not.”
Now in the predinner cocktail hour, canapés came and went, and so did a second Campari and soda and finally a third. When seating at the bar proved too noisy for conversation, Dot commandeered a nearby table. In the ensuing conversation, Roger began to learn a bit about his companions. The three women were old college chums who had all attended Wellesley and had stayed friends through thick and thin ever since, including taking two-week cruises together each and every year.
Roger didn’t know exactly where Wellesley was, but he was pretty sure going there was a pricey proposition. And knowing how much the cruise cost on the open market, he estimated there had been a whole lot more thick in the women’s lives than there had been thin. Dot had a cabin—a Star Suite like his—all to herself, while Angie and Millie bunked together in the next category down, a Veranda Stateroom. In the bar and again when they moved into the dining room, Roger listened to their harmless dinnertime chatter, feeling as though he was being given a window into another world, one he’d never even imagined.
Somewhere between courses three and four, between the mixed green salad and the pappardelle pasta, Roger came to the realization that these women had most likely been contemporaries of his late mother, may she rot in hell. Unlike Eloise McGeary, however, the girls actually seemed to like him.
After the surf-and-turf main course—prime rib and lobster—and dessert—a delectable flan topped with a layer of crisp caramel and three perfect raspberries—Roger felt the buzz of an incoming text. But the wine had been flowing—white followed by red—and he was on vacation. If someone from work wanted to be in touch, they could damned well wait. And if it was Aunt Julia? Well, then, she could wait, too. It was afternoon in Payson, Arizona, and she’d be out looking after her horses. Taking the phone out of his pocket but without bothering to look at the screen, he powered it off.
Once dinner was over, the group migrated back to the bar, where a piano player accompanied a talented vocalist who sang everything from Patsy Cline to the Beatles. The passengers were mostly of an earlier vintage, Roger noted, and so was the music.
A couple of hours went by, and more than a little booze passed Roger’s lips, booze that was definitely of the high-octane variety. Halfway through his third Courvoisier, he realized that Millie and Angie had both disappeared from the picture, and he was left with an increasingly aggressive Dot, who was feeling him up in a most insistent and suggestive fashion. Roger was just drunk enough to find it laughable that this very spry older woman was hitting on him, but once she mentioned, not so coyly, that he was the “only fresh meat” to be found on board, it didn’t seem nearly so funny anymore.
Excusing himself to go to “the little boys’ room,” Roger fled the bar, ducked into the elevator, and made his way back to his own deck. The ship was rocking and rolling underfoot, but this time it wasn’t just the roiling sea that sent him staggering back and forth from wall to wall all the way down the corridor. He was drunk—as drunk as he’d ever been in his life. He tried his key in the door. When it didn’t work, he finally realized that he was trying to enter the wrong suite.
Once he got inside, he felt like he was going to puke. Closer to his lanai than the bathroom, Roger fought his way through blackout curtains, pulled open the slider, stumbled over to the rail, and cut loose. Then, incredibly grateful that he had made it in time, he stood for a time savoring the wind and the sea and the pounding rain and trying to pull himself together. He didn’t care if his tux got wet at that point because it would for sure have to go to the cleaners anyway. He was almost ready to go back inside when his phone buzzed again.
How could that be? Hadn’t he turned it off during dinner? Swaying back and forth next to the rail, he fumbled the phone out of his pocket and scowled down at the screen in frowning puzzlement. What he saw there wasn’t really a text—at least it didn’t look like a standard text. The words appeared one at a time, scrolling past as though a very fast typist was typing them in real time.
He had read through only a sentence or two before he recognized what he was reading. The words on the screen were all too familiar, and standing there in the wind and the rain, he could almost hear his mother’s voice, berating him in the car as they drove to his high school commencement:
What on earth did I do to deserve such an incredible little shit? You’re just like your father, Roger McGeary, utterly and totally worthless, and you’ll never amount to a hill of beans. What have you got to show for that supposedly high IQ of yours? You barely graduated, for cripes’ sake. Your GPA isn’t good enough to get into college, and what the hell would you do if you got there? Screw around the same way you did in high school? If you think I’m going to let you sit around the house on your lazy ass, buster, you have another think coming. James McGeary, that worthless father of yours, finally had the good grace to do the world a favor and off himself. With any kind of luck, you will, too.
Roger recognized the words—Eloise McGeary’s words. Months earlier, during a course of psychiatric treatment, he had recalled them all and written them down verbatim in a document for his therapist, Dr. Amelia Cannon. She had assured him that writing out exactly what his mother had said would be a healing exercise—a way of recognizing his mother’s meanness and spite for what it was as well as a way of negating Eloise’s powerful hold over him.
At the beginning of Roger’s senior year in high school, Eloise had uprooted her son and moved to L.A. Lost in an unfamiliar situation— overwhelmed and unable to cope—he’d barely managed to graduate. A little over a week after commencement, Roger McGeary had attempted suicide. Deeming him a danger to himself and others, Eloise had made it her business to have her son locked away in a mental institution where he had remained for the next ten years of his life. It was only in the past few years, at Aunt Julia’s urging, that he’d finally gone for counseling. It had been in the course of his supposedly confidential sessions with Dr. Cannon that Roger had written down these very words—ones that now seemed to have developed a life of their own on the screen of his cell phone.
Roger’s hands trembled. If the words he had written for Dr. Cannon could surface here, that meant they could surface in other places as well. They were out in the world somewhere, most likely all over the Internet, where eventually they were bound to be used against him. Somewhere down the line, some boss—a guy somewhere far up the chain of command—would bring those words to bear and use them to imply that Roger was mentally unstable; that, if he was undergoing therapy, he most likely couldn’t be trusted with the kinds of security clearances necessary to perform his duties. He’d be done for—out of a job, unemployed and unemployable.
And in that moment, on a night that should have counted as a social triumph, Roger found himself sliding back into the same kind of blinding despair that had kept him in a state of mental paralysis for the better part of ten years. He wouldn’t go there. He would not. He couldn’t. He had fought so hard to climb out of that snake pit of unending darkness that he couldn’t stand the idea of falling back into it again. Could. Not. Stand. It.
The words had stopped scrolling, and suddenly the screen went blank. He punched the power button and the phone came to life, starting over from scratch—as if it had been completely powered off. When the start-up sequence finished, Roger went straight to the texting app, looking for the message he’d just seen, but it wasn’t there. There was no sign of it at all.
So where had the words come from, then? If he hadn’t seen them—if he’d just imagined them—maybe he really had gone nuts. Again. And that was something else he could not and would not endure.
By then he was soaked to the skin, but that didn’t matter. Making up his mind, he put the phone down on the lanai’s patio table and then pulled one of the deck chairs over to the railing. He clambered up onto the chair and then stood for a moment—hearing the words again—not as they had appeared on the screen but as he had heard them more than two decades ago, in his mother’s shrill voice. He was still hearing them as he plunged over the side of the ship and into the black water far below, with no one on board the ship any the wiser. And it was only then, as the icy sea closed over him, that Roger McGeary finally moved beyond the reach of his mother’s earthly torment.
Abandoned on the lanai’s small patio table, the phone remained there for some time, glowing silently in the dark, before finally shutting down for good.
It was Reynaldo, coming the next morning to deliver Roger’s breakfast, who found the sliding door open and the carpeting inside the stateroom soaked by lashing rain. Out on the lanai, a spray-soaked cell phone lay face up on the table. The butler immediately tossed a life vest over the rail before calling in to sound the alarm: man overboard.
By then, of course, it was far too late.
Author Genre: Mystery & Thrillers
Website: J.A. Jance
Author's Blog: J.A. Jance - NYT Bestselling Author
Twitter: @JAJance
E-Mail: jajance@jance.com
Goodreads: Check Out Goodreads
Facebook: Check Out Facebook
Post with Profile + Interview: HBS Author's Spotlight
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; three interrelated thrillers featuring the Walker family; and Edge of Evil, the first in a series featuring Ali Reynolds. Born in South Dakota and brought up in Bisbee, Arizona, Jance lives with her husband in Seattle, Washington, and Tucson, Arizona.
Author's Book List
Downfall
- A Brady Novel of SuspenseArizona sheriff Joanna Brady returns in this outstanding new mystery set in the beautiful desert country of the Southwest.
With a baby on the way, sudden deaths in the family from which to recover, a re-election 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.
Two women have fallen to their deaths from a small nearby peak, referred to by Bisbee locals as Geronimo. What’s the connection between these two women? Is this a case of murder/suicide or is it a double homicide? And if someone else is responsible, is it possible that the perpetrator may, even now, be on the hunt for another victim?
Order the Book From:
Amazon
Audible
Clawback
- An Ali Reynolds NovelIn 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.
Order the Book From:
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
Audible
No Honor Among Thieves
- An Ali Reynolds Novella“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.
Legos that are being tracked by B. Simpson’s security firm to reduce black market sales—and Ali Reynolds is just the woman to get to the bottom of the crime. She has the tech and the intel to follow the money (or, in this case, the Legos), which makes her a valuable asset to Joanna’s team. Soon these two strong women realize that they’re not just sharing a case, they’re kindred spirits—which is paramount, because the killer they’re up against is anything but child’s play.
Order the Book From:
Amazon
Audible
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.
Order the Book From:
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
Audible
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!
Order the Book From:
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
Audible
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.
Order the Book From:
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
Audible
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.
Order the Book From:
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
Audible
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.
Order the Book From:
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
Audible
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.
Order the Book From:
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
Audible
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!
Order the Book From:
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
Audible
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.
Order the Book From:
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
Audible
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.
Order the Book From:
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
Audible
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. . . .
Order the Book From:
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
Audible
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.
Order the Book From:
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
Audible
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.
Order the Book From:
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
Audible
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.
Order the Book From:
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
Audible
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.
Order the Book From:
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
Audible
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.
Order the Book From:
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
Audible
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.
Order the Book From:
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
Audible
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.
Order the Book From:
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
Audible
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.
Order the Book From:
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
Audible
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.
Order the Book From:
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
Audible
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.
Order the Book From:
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
Audible
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.
Order the Book From:
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
Audible
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.
Order the Book From:
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
Audible
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.
Order the Book From:
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
iTunes Store
Audible
Author Recommended by: HBSystems Publications
Publisher of ebooks, writing industry blogger and the sponsor of the following blogs:
eBook Author’s Corner
Mystery Reader’s Circle
Check out the index of other Spotlight authors. Spotlight Index.
No comments:
Post a Comment