Web of Evil (Ali Reynolds Series #2) » (Reprint)

You might call J. A. Jance a true town and country novelist, since she writes one series set in Seattle and one in small-town Arizona as she shuttles between the two in real life. In big-city homicide detective J. P. Beaumont and in small-town sheriff/mom Joanna Brady, Jance has created two mega-popular mystery franchises.

The highway from Los Angeles to the Palm Springs desert is parched, unforgiving, and deadly. In the suffocating stillness of a car trunk, a man -- his mouth and hands bound with tape -- waits to learn his fate. Fortunately for him, he'll never know. What possible enemy could be bitter enough to commit such a heinous crime? And when will the monster make another move?

Ali Reynolds is traveling that same blistering, lonesome highway, looking forward to putting her past behind her. She'd left Los Angeles for the home comforts of Sedona, Arizona, and the satisfaction of a blog, cutlooseblog.com. But her cheating husband is in a hurry for a divorce; his very young and very pregnant fiancée has a wedding planned for the next day. And the television network that wrongfully dismissed Ali for the sole sin of being over forty will face her in court as well. So Ali must return to the scene of those crimes. As she passes the site of a horrifying accident, she thanks goodness it's no longer her job to report the news. Until she finds out the news is her own.... For the victim is Ali's cheating husband, and soon she'll find herself the prime suspect at the center of a terrifying web of evil.

Web of Evil gives us J. A. Jance at her most masterful in a twisted and lethal drama of heart-pounding suspense that asks the question: If hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, just what punishment could that fury unleash?

Publishers Weekly

At the start of bestseller Jance's uninspired second Ali Reynolds thriller (after Edge of Evil), Ali's husband, Paul Grayson, is killed on the eve of their divorce-by a train that hits the car where he's tied up in the trunk somewhere near Palm Springs, Calif. Ali, Paul's legal beneficiary, becomes the chief murder suspect. A popular blogger and former Los Angeles TV news anchor who's suing the station where she used to work for wrongful dismissal, Ali initiates her own investigation, enlisting the help of her mother, grown son Chris and high school friend Dave Holman, a homicide detective in Sedona, Ariz., where Ali now lives. In a series of clumsy plot developments involving Paul's fianc e, April Gaddis, and April's greedy mother, Monique Ragsdale, Ali learns that Paul was financing a performance variety of the sumo sudoku puzzle fad. Full of endless blogs and superficial characters, this one will disappoint fans of Jance's expertly written and paced Joanna Brady and J.P. Beaumont mysteries. (Jan.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.