Mailbox Monday is a place to celebrate the new books that take up residence in our houses. It is currently touring, and Rose City Reader is the January Host. Next month, it moves on to Library of Clean Reads.
I had one book arrive in my mailbox this week:
Fatal Error by J.A. Jance (Ali Reynolds #6)
Ali Reynolds begins the summer thinking her most difficult challenge will be surviving a six-week- long course as the lone forty-something female at the Arizona Police Academy—not to mention taking over the 6:00 AM shift at her family’s restaurant while her parents enjoy a long overdue Caribbean cruise. However, when Brenda Riley, a colleague from Ali’s old news broadcasting days in California, shows up in town with an alcohol problem and an unlikely story about a missing fiancé, Ali reluctantly agrees to help.
The man posing as Brenda’s fiancé is revealed to be Richard Lowensdale, a cyber-sociopath who has left a trail of broken hearts in his virtual wake. When he is viciously murdered, the women he once victimized are considered suspects. The police soon focus their investigation on Brenda, who is already known to have broken into Richard’s home and computer before vanishing without a trace. Attempting to clear her friend’s name, Ali is quickly drawn into a web of online intrigue that may lead to a real-world fatal error.
When I received an e-mail asking if I’d be interested in reviewing this book, I jumped on it enthusiastically. The description hit a couple of keywords guaranteed to catch my attention: “Arizona” (my home state) and “on-line intrigue” (I worked in IT, and computer security was one of my specialties many years ago. I’m still interested). More than even those was the author.
I enjoyed J.A. Jance’s Joanna Brady books. I’d read the first 9 when the series had a crossover with her other well-known series, the J.P. Beaumont books. So I went and read those. All 15 of them. More or less in a row.
I don’t do that anymore. I haven’t really read J.A. Jance since then. It wasn’t that I didn’t like the books. I’m willing to abandon a series that isn’t working for me. It’s just that it was too much of a good thing.
I’m past that now, and I’m enthusiastic about returning to a much-liked author. I was enthusiastic enough not to notice this is book 6 in a series that I don’t think I’ve read (the first book sounds vaguely familiar, and I have a rotten memory, which is one of the reasons I started blogging, so I can remember what I thought). I’m not fanatical about reading in order. If I enjoy this as much as I’m expecting to, I’ll add the first in the series to my list of books to find.
Any new books at your house? Tell me here (or point me to your blog), then go and check out the Linky at Rose City Reader!
