Trial by Fire
A Novel of Suspense
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
New York Times bestselling author J.A. Jance’s sleuth Ali Reynolds is back for another thrilling adventure as she strives to grant a dying woman’s last request—to find the people who nearly killed her.
Ali Reynolds is back in the thick of it in the latest adventure in the New York Times bestselling suspense series. Taking on a media relations position with the Yavapai County Police Department, Ali puts her reporting (and crime solving) skills to good use—and her first time out on the job, it’s trial by fire...
When a subdivision-in-the-making goes up in flames, everyone hopes that the unfinished, unoccupied homes will yield no victims. But one woman is found barely alive and burned beyond recognition. She is taken to the ER, where for months she lies in a medically induced coma, unclaimed and unidentified. When she finally emerges from her coma, the life she awakens to is bleak and lonely. Badly disfigured and with no clue as to who she is or where she came from, she is brought to the nuns at a Sisters of Providence Convent.
At the convent, she is nursed and cared for. But before she can begin her painful and difficult recovery, Jane Doe is diagnosed with a hopeless and swift-moving cancer. Now with sudden desperation, there are two things she must find out. Ali Reynolds is called upon to grant this dying woman’s final wishes—to find the people who saved her life, and the people who tried to kill her.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In bestseller Jance's middling fifth Ali Reynolds thriller (after Cruel Intent), the ex TV journalist takes over a media-relations job at the county police department in her hometown of Sedona, Ariz., after the previous flack is sent on administrative leave for misconduct. Soon after being fitted for the mandatory Kevlar vest, Ali goes to the site of a subdivision fire that has left an unidentified woman in critical condition. All signs point to arson, but the fire's amnesia-ridden survivor is the only one who knows the truth. With the help of a hospital nurse who's also a nun, Ali mostly undercover in a red wig in the hospital's burn unit waiting room slowly pieces together the victim's identity and her relationship to the fire. That Ali is essentially cast as a stenographer, surreptitiously transcribing the conversations of those visiting the victim's room, narrows the window for heart-racing action. A desert shoot-out tacked on toward the end adds some excitement.