Credible Threat
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
Ali Reynolds and her team at High Noon Enterprises must race against the clock to save an archbishop who faces mysterious death threats in this “masterly study of the effects of grief, rage, and the power of forgiveness” (Publishers Weekly) by New York Times bestselling author J.A. Jance.
Years after her son’s fatal overdose, grieving mother Rachel Higgins learns that his addiction may have grown out of damage suffered at the hands of a pedophile priest while he was in high school. Looking for vengeance, she targets the Catholic Church’s most visible local figure, Archbishop Francis Gillespie. When the archbishop begins receiving anonymous threats, local police dismiss them, saying they’re not credible. So he turns to his friends, Ali Reynolds and her husband, B. Simpson.
With B. out of the country on a cybersecurity emergency, it’s up to Ali to track down the source of the threats. When a shooter assassinates the archbishop’s driver and leaves the priest himself severely injured, Ali forms an uneasy alliance with a Phoenix homicide cop in hopes of preventing another attack. But Ali doesn’t realize that the killer has become not only more unhinged but also more determined to take out his or her target.
Credible Threat is another “terrific entry in a series distinguished by its consistent quality, [and] sensitive treatment of a difficult subject makes this an extraordinary literary experience” (The Providence Journal).
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Is it possible to feel sympathy for a cold-blooded killer? Bestseller Jance pulls it off in her poignant 15th Ali Reynolds mystery (after 2019's The A List). Rachel Higgins has been going through the motions in the years since her grown son, David, died of an overdose. But after she realizes that David was molested as a teen by his swimming coach, Father Needham, at St. Francis High in Phoenix, Rachel carefully plots her revenge. Since Needham died of AIDS in prison after being convicted of multiple counts of pedophilia, Rachel decides to kill Needham's superior, Archbishop Francis Gillespie, for letting it happen. When the archbishop begins receiving anonymous threats, he asks High Noon Enterprises, a cybersecurity firm owned by Ali and her husband, B. Simpson, to investigate after the police dismiss the notes as not a credible threat. When B. has to go overseas, the case is left to Ali and her team of cyber experts. Depth of character compensates for some overwriting. Jance has rendered a masterly study of the effects of grief, rage, and the power of forgiveness.