Moving Target

J. A. Jance

Language: English

Publisher: Touchstone

Published: Feb 18, 2014

Description:

In this “engrossing” (Publishers Weekly) thriller from New York Times bestselling author J.A. Jance, journalist- turned-investigator Ali Reynolds unearths a cold case that puts her in danger from a deadly arsonist.

Lance Tucker, an incarcerated juvenile offender and talented hacker in his own right, is set on fire one night and severely burned while hanging Christmas decorations in a lockup rec room. B. Simpson, Ali Reynolds’s fiancé and the man who helped put Lance in jail, feels obliged to get to the bottom of what happened. With Ali off in England to help Leland Brooks at a reunion with his long-estranged family, B. turns to someone else to help out—Ali’s good friend and Taser-carrying nun, Sister Anselm.

Meanwhile, in Bournemouth—Leland’s hometown—Ali begins to investigate the decades-old murder of Leland’s father, which Leland himself was once suspected of committing. With unsolved murders on both sides of the Atlantic, Ali, B., and Sister Anselm are united by their search for answers—and the jeopardy they get into as a result.

From the author praised for her “inimitable, take-no-prisoners style” (Kirkus Reviews), Moving Target sends Ali on a trans-Atlantic adventure and straight into the path of a deadly killer.

**

From Booklist

Just weeks before her wedding, Ali Reynolds accompanies eightysomething Leland Brooks, her longtime beloved majordomo, to England for his first trip back to his homeland in almost 60 years, a visit that reveals shocking family secrets. Meanwhile, Ali’s fiancé, B. Simpson, head of high-tech security company High Noon Enterprises, is diverted from his international business by the plight of teenage computer wunderkind Lance Tucker. Put in juvenile detention after breaking into his Texas school district’s computer system, Lance is almost fatally injured in what is deemed an accident. But as the bodies pile up, including those of Lance’s math teacher and a maintenance man at the detention center, it’s clear that someone badly wants GHOST, “the cyber version of Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak” that allows undetected web surfing, developed by Lance and his late teacher. In the ninth Ali Reynolds outing (after Deadly Stakes, 2013), Jance adroitly combines well-rounded characterizations and brisk storytelling with high-tech exploits, arson, kidnappings, and a shootout for an entertaining and suspenseful addition to this solid series. --Michele Leber

Review

"Compelling... satisfying." -- "USA Today"