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Trial by Fire: A Novel of Suspense
Trial by Fire: A Novel of Suspense
Trial by Fire: A Novel of Suspense
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Trial by Fire: A Novel of Suspense

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

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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.
LanguageEnglish
PublisherGallery Books
Release dateDec 1, 2009
ISBN9781416563884
Author

J. A. Jance

J. A. Jance is the New York Times bestselling author of the J. P. Beaumont series, the Joanna Brady series, the Ali Reynolds series, six thrillers about the Walker Family, and one volume of poetry. Born in South Dakota and brought up in Bisbee, Arizona, she lives with her husband in Seattle, Washington.

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Reviews for Trial by Fire

Rating: 3.9198114226415095 out of 5 stars
4/5

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  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    A fire erupts in two houses being built outside the city limits of Casa Verde, Arizona. When the volunteer fire department arrives, they find a woman in one of the two houses.She is not a squatter, she didn’t set the fire, she is nude and her clothes are missing. ATF is involved because the fires are believed to be set by ELF, an eco-terrorist group.Sister Anselm, the nursing sister who is been caring for the fire victim, and with the help of Ali Reynolds, police media representative, is trying to identify her and prevent a possible second attack from occurring.I sat down and read this book in one straight period, I simply could not set it down.It is a suspenseful mystery that kept me on the edge of my seat all night. This is the 4th book in this series but can be read as a standalone novel. Now, I am going to read all the series.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I wasn't too sure going into this book. I almost gave up on this series, but this one brought me back in. It follows Ali Reynolds, a former LA anchor and blogger, as she takes on a new job as Yavapai County Sheriff's Office's new media relations consultant. Working with the police, she gets pulled into a case filled with arson, art theft, and attempted murder. This book completely does away with cutlooseblog, Ali's signature blog, and it was hardly noticeable. I felt it made the story better. Ali is growing into quite a character and I can't wait to see what's next.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I loved it and I love Ali's character. The story line is always so complicated, which is what I want in a mystery!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I have not read any other books by J.A. Jance and my question is, why?This book reads like a well put together mystery with an interesting story line. Other than the wonderful art of misdirection that mystery writers seem to be born with, there is no magic here. Just good writing. I became entangled with the characters and their various plights as soon as I met them. I also recognized most of the bad guys as being bad guys. All I had left to do was read what happened to them. So I did. It was an easy book to get lost in. I enjoyed the time I spent there and all along was rooting for my new friends.I have since realized this book is part of a series and now I guess we all know what I am drawn to do, don't we? Yes. I will go find the others and read them as well. You should too. Very enjoyable read.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This wasn't a bad read. The main character seems a bit too insightful and perfect, solving the mystery without a lot of police assistance. The story kept my interest and the pacing was solid.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    When I went to the library this week, I just couldn't resist picking up a new-to-me J. A. Jance and this one is as good as, if not better, than all of the others I've read. It's the fourth novel in the Ali Reynolds series.As usual, Jance grabbed me with the first page which begins, "She awakened to the sound of roaring flames and to searing heat and lung-choking smoke. Maybe she was already dead and this was hell, but why would she go to hell?"The woman realizes finally that she is alive because she knows her leg is burning. Something, a beam maybe, is holding her leg down and when she tries to move it, her hand catches fire too. This poor woman doesn't know how she got there or why, where "there" is, or even who she is. Then she sees a creature coming through the flames. He's yellow or possibly orange and he picks her up to carry her away. She thinks he's Satan and she is in hell after all, but of course he's a fireman who has entered the burning house under construction and saved her.She awakens in the hospital in horrible pain which disappears into a cloud only when a kind nun pushes the button to give her a dose of morphine. The nun seems always to be there. Meanwhile, Ali Reynolds has been recruited to be a temporary media relations consultant for the Yavapai Sheriff's Department in Prescott. She lives in Sedona but won't have to go to Prescott very often. Trouble is, her predecessor has been fired and no one in the department wants her there. She is called out to the fire to handle the media and at the site she notices someone has painted ELF in giant letters on one of the burning houses in this new development. The Environmental Liberation Front is an echo of a real life group that has made headlines in the western states for the last two decades or more so this is drawn right from the headlines.Ali follows the victim to the hospital in Phoenix where she is asked to stay in the waiting room to see what develops, and incidentally to protect the victim because the person who tried to kill her is still at large and for that matter, unknown. She discovers, as I have many times, that if you sit quietly in a hospital waiting room reading (or in her case typing on a laptop), you sort of disappear into the woodwork as far as other visitors are concerned. She also becomes a confidante of Sister Anselm, the caregiver for the victim.This wonderful story grabbed me by the collar yesterday, got me through an evening when my husband insisted on watching American Idol (ugh), and wouldn't let me go today until I finished it. The characters are real as life, and although I figured out whodunit before the end, it certainly didn't spoil finding out how Ali solved it or what became of the characters at the end. I do recommend this suspense novel.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I don't read much in the suspense genre, but when I found out J.A. Jance would be the keynote speaker at a local writers' conference I decided to read her work and get a book signed.In this fifth book of the Ali Reynolds series, Ali is asked to be a media relations consultant for Yavapai County. After only a day on the job, she's called to handle the media at the scene of a tragic house fire where an older woman was found naked and severely burned. Graffiti at the scene points to the ELF, but the woman's identity remains a mystery. Ali's job takes her to the burn ward in Phoenix where she strikes an unusual friendship with Sister Anselm, a nun known as the "Angel of Death." Anselm is only called to assist unidentified persons who are near death. In this case, the nun may be closer than ever before. The arsonist is still on the loose, and Ali and the nun agree that they will try to finish the job on their Jane Doe.I struggled to get into the first one hundred pages of the book. It's always hard to jump into the middle of a series. I had too many names thrown at me and had no clue who most of the people were (nor were they relevant to the current story). However, once the mystery woman was identified and her conflicted family came into play, I was hooked. I zoomed through the last few hundred pages. Ali is likeable enough, though I really like how the mystery pieced together. It has a very modern feel, with iPhone apps being used to save the day. That may date the book in the future, but it makes it seem current and (somewhat) realistic for now.I don't know if I will read on with the series or Jance's other books, but I found this one enjoyable in the end.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Trial By Fire is quintessential JA Jance. It’s a moderately paced suspense/mystery, with strong, interesting female characters, set in beautiful Arizona.In this story, an upscale home under construction is destroyed by arson. A woman is found inside the home, barely alive. The burn victim is so injured that she cannot communicate well, and she has amnesia, so she cannot provide much information about the source of the fire.Ali Reynolds is a former journalist who is pressed in to handling media relations for the Yavapai County sheriff. But she realizes that she can use her position and skills to help solve the case – not just be the spokesperson. The most interesting character in Trial By Fire, however, is not the main character Ali Reynolds. The most interesting character is Sister Anselm, a nurse and nun whose mission is to aid the “John and Jane Does” suffering in hospitals. Sister Anselm is a very astute listener, and does much of the detective work by simply listening and observing.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Ali Reynolds, a well to do widow, has returned to her hometown of Sedona, Arizona to be near her parents and her grown son and his wife. She has no need to take a job, but when the sheriff asks her, based on her background as a journalist, to temporarily take on the media coordinator job for his department, she accepts. And very soon is wondering why. She finds herself resented on all side, in the middle of a department shakeup. Then things really heat up, quite literally. She is called to the scene of an ongoing fire involving two houses under construction. Because it is a suspected case of eco-terrorism, the feds are called in, and when a very badly burned woman is rescued from one of the houses, it also become a case of attempted murder. If they only had some idea who the woman is, if she herself had any idea who she was, why she was in that house and who wants her dead.Because of the federal involvement, the sheriff assigns Ali to the hospital where the burn victims was taken, to handle the press and see if she can uncover any information to help identify the woman. There she meets Sister Anselm, an elderly nun who is a nurse and patient advocate for very serious cases, earning her the media name of the Angel of Death....and someone with an interesting story of her own. Someone wants her patient dead, but Sister Anselm and Ali are going to do their best to discover what is really going on.There are a number of things I liked about this book...and a few I did not. Let's take the negative first. Some aspects of the plot required some suspension of disbelief. As an example, a lengthy stake out in the visitors waiting room involving a red wig and pink pants suit...not so believable for me. The ending just a bit too easy and pat. But on the positive side, there is a lot to recommend this book. The book is well written, the story entertaining if not extremely memorable. And there are a number of very good and likable characters, including Ali's houseman/assistant/majordomo Leland Brooks, her injured Iraq veteran daughter-in-law and the very smart and capable Ali herself. This is the fifth in this series, a series which is only one of several Jance has written, and if these characters are going to make a reappearance, I would be interested in checking out any future installments.Some good characters and an entertaining story overcome some issues I have with this book and would have me give it a slightly qualified recommendation.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Trial by Fire - J. A. JanceI won’t bore you with a recap of the story since so many others did a better job at it than I can do. What I will tell you is why I did like this book and why, at the same time, I didn’t like this book. I’ve been a fan of Ms Jance’s since I found, at my local library, the Joanna Brady books. These I would describe as police procedural/suspense novels and they had wonderful stories, excellent plotting, wonderful mysteries and terrific characters with a lot of depth and realism. “Trial by Fire” is the first Ali Reynolds book that I have read. I haven’t read anything by Ms Jance in quite a while, and I was thrilled to be offered this book. I loved the Joanna Brady books so why not this one? What I didn’t take into account was the change in Ms Jance's writing style. I know authors get bored writing the same way and the same thing all the time, but this was a bit of a shock to me. This book should really have not been labeled a suspense; not that it wasn’t, it had it’s moments of suspense. But the fact is, this book read much more like a “cozy mystery”, a bit fluffier and way less hard-boiled than the average suspense novel, less down and dirty action and had way more of the “warm and fuzzy” factor than I want in my suspense books.One problem I had is with the oddness at the end, when the suspect is finally caught and just confesses to everything without a care in the world. It was too neat and to clean to be believable. It was almost as if Ms Jance wrote too much before that and had to find a quick way to tie it all up. The secondary story was very interesting and received short shrift as far as I was concerned.Aspects of this book reminded me a lot of Christian novels too. It was interesting to learn of Sister Anselm’s back story but it wasn’t all that necessary to go into so much depth, nor was it necessary to give so many pages over to the other two burn victim’s stories. I just couldn’t see how they helped the story progress..I liked this book if I think of it as a "cozy mystery", and will most definitely be buying the others in this series and even the next one coming up, but as a novel of suspense it left something to be desired. All in all I just think it was mislabeled and had the wrong style of cover; had it been labeled as something else, with different art, I may not have had the same expectations as I did when I started this book.

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Trial by Fire - J. A. Jance

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