Book Review: Remains of Innocence by J.A. Jance

Remains of Innocence

Title: Remains of Innocence (Joanna Brady #16) by J. A. Jance
Published July 22, 2014; William Morrow
Genre: mystery, suspense

Lisa Matchett hasn't seen her penny pinching mother, a hoarder in the worst possible way, in about eleven years. When Selma is taken to hospice, Lisa cleans out the house and discovers her mother's secret.

But others begin to kill for this secret, and Lisa rides with truckers to hide her trail to her brother in Arizona.
Her story later links up with Sheriff Joanna Brady in Arizona who is solving the mystery of Junior, a man found dead at the bottom of a deep cave with the bodies of  pets around him. Was Junior a torturer of animals, and did someone push him to his death?

I loved the two different stories - a suspenseful trip with Lisa fleeing the bad guys, and the mystery of Junior and the dead and injured pets. The separate events come together well and in an unusual way. The plot of this novel is fantastic and as a mystery lover, I really enjoyed the action and the suspense, the detailed investigation techniques that Sheriff Brady and her team follow.... until, that is, I got to the very end.

The ending made me want to have an existential and theological discussion with the author Jance about evil and the nature of evil. The motive she gives for one of the murders was incomplete and that spoiled the book for me. Rating? Five stars for the suspense, two stars for the unsettling and, in my view, unresolved ending to one of the murders.

Synopsis: Sheriff Joanna Brady must solve two perplexing cases that may be tied together. J. A. Jance’s tale of suspense brings to life Arizona’s Cochise County and the desert Southwest's beauty and mystery. An old woman, a hoarder, is dying of emphysema in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. In cleaning out her house, her daughter, Liza Machett, discovers that her mother was hiding a secret. Liza flees dangerous pursuers on a journey that will end in Cochise County, where Sheriff Joanna Brady is embroiled in a personal mystery of her own. A man she considers a family friend is found dead at the bottom of a hole in a limestone cavern near Bisbee.  Are the two disparate cases connected? It’s up to Joanna to find out. (publisher)

About the author: J. A. Jance is bestselling author of the J. P. Beaumont mystery series, the Joanna Brady series, three interrelated thrillers featuring the Walker family, and Edge of Evil. Jance lives with her husband in Seattle, Washington, and Tucson, Arizona.

Thanks to Partners in Crime Book Tours and the publisher for a review ARC of this book. Visit the tour schedule for other reviews.

MOVING TARGET by J.A. Jance

Another J.A. Jance thriller: 

Title: Moving Target by J.A. Jance
Publication: February 18, 2014; Touchstone
Genre: mystery, thriller

page 56:

"Maybe you weren't wrong," Ali said. "Back in that era and even now, I have a feeling, there have been more than a few gay people who married and stayed married for camouflage reasons." 

Leland shook his head. "Maybe so," he said.

Book beginning:
Prologue

Lance Tucker had always hated ladders, but between climbing up and down a ladder in the recreation hall and sitting through another one of Mrs. Stone's endless GED classes, there was no contest. Climbing the rickety ladder to decorate the nine-foot Christmas tree was definitely the lesser of two evils.  

Book description:
 Lance Tucker, a juvenile offender and talented hacker, 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 find out what happened. With Ali off in England helping Leland Brooks at a family reunion, B. turns to Taser-carrying nun, Sister Anselm, for help.

Meanwhile, in England, Ali investigates the decades-old murder of Leland's father, which Leland himself was once suspected of committing. With unsolved murders here and in England, Ali, B., and Sister Anselm are united by their search for answers and the jeopardy they get into as a result. (publisher)

Would you keep reading Moving Target, based on the excerpts and book description?

Deadly Stakes: A Novel by J.A. Jance

Friday 56 Rules:

*Grab a book, any book.
*Turn to page 56 or 56% in your eReader  *Find any sentence, (or few, just don't spoil it) that grabs you. *Post it. *Add your (url) post in Linky at Freda's Voice.

"That's the problem," Detective Cutter said. "We don't know who the victim is. No identification was found on the body, and so far, no one matching the victim's description has been reported missing anywhere in the Phoenix metropolitan area. We initially thought that finding the owner of the phone would lead us to the victim."

"But I'm not dead," Lynn objected.

Title: Deadly Stakes: A Novel by J.A. Jance
Published February 5, 2013; Touchstone
Description: Ali Reynolds finds herself working against the police to clear two innocent names…with deadly stakes. Police academy-trained former reporter Ali Reynolds investigates the murder of a gold-digging divorcee on behalf of a woman accused of the crime. Lynn Martinson is dating the dead woman’s ex-husband, and she and her boyfriend Chip Ralston have been charged.

Left for Dead, a Novel by J.A.Jance

Title: Left for Dead: a Novel by J. A. Jance

Hardcover, 304 pages

Published February 7, 2012; Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing Group
Genre:mystery- thriller

Today is the release date for J.A. Jance's new thriller, Left for Dead. I received a review copy and am looking forward to it. I've liked many of her previous mysteries.

Book description: When Santa Cruz County deputy sheriff Jose Reyes, Ali Reynolds' classmate from the Arizona Police Academy, is gunned down and left to die, he is at first assumed to be an innocent victim of the drug wars escalating across the border. But the crime scene investigation shows there’s much more to it than that, and soon he and his pregnant wife, Teresa, both fall under suspicion of wrongdoing. Another victim left for dead is also in the hospital. Ali investigates these two shocking cases of victims brutally left for dead despite pressure to drop the case.

Book Reviews: Betrayal of Trust; and The Most Dangerous Thing

Two detectives are called in when a snuff film is found on a young man's cell phone. The young man happens to be the step grandson of the Governor of Washingston State. The boy denies knowing anything about the film which shows the strangulation of a young girl, or who sent it to him. Detectives J.P. Beaumont and his partner and wife, Detective Mel Soames, are assigned to the case.

The story is about high school adolescents unsupervised by adults and others betrayed by the adults they trust. The book points out the dangers adolescents sometimes face, not only from adults, but also from each other.

Title: Betrayal of Trust by J.A. Jance
Hardcover, 352 pages
Published July 5th 2011 by William Morrow & Company
Objective rating: 4.5/5



A book with a similar overall theme is Laura's Lippman's The Most Dangerous Thing. Five adults were best friends growing up together. Now, Gordon, in his 40s, has died after crashing his car into a tree. Was it suicide or the result of drinking and speeding? The novel is written with flashbacks in every other chapter, to reveal what happened during their childhood and the consequences in adulthood. Slow to start off, the book nevertheless grabs you in the second half with its startling revelations about the adults and the children that they were.



Title: The Most Dangerous Thing by Laura Lippman
Hardcover, 384 pages
Published September 1st 2011 by William Morrow (first published August 23rd 2011)
Objective rating: 4/5

These two books were sent to me by the publisher. My reviews and ratings are in no way influenced by my receiving complimentary copies.