19 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Steady as she goes, December 26, 2007
I'm a pretty big fan of J. A. Jance. Way back in the day I read her first three books when they were alone in print, and enjoyed them considerably. I can remember being in the old murder mystery bookstore in Long Beach, named Sherlock's Home, and first having the book recommended to me there. I can also recall the day, several years later after the owner had moved the store to another location, standing in the front and looking in the back of the new book to discover that the author (until then only identified by her initials) was female. Everyone I knew who read the books tried to say they knew, but of course no one really did.
Since then, Jance has come a long way, of course. She's written a whole bunch of books with the main character she started with, J. P. Beaumont. She also launched a second series a few years ago, featuring a female Sheriff in Arizona. In addition, she's done several stand alone suspense novels. It turns out that on top of all of that she's started a third series. This book is the third entry in that series. The main character is a former LA News Anchor called Ali Reynolds.
The setting is the typical Jance Southwest that she uses in the Joanna Brady books. Ali has moved to Arizona, and gets mixed up with a series of killings involving incidents that took place as long as forty years ago. As things progress, the killer(s) and the action heat up, but the whole thing is a bit unfocused and diffuse.
I enjoyed Hand of Evil pretty well, but it's not my favorite of Jance's books. For one thing, the author has to rely on rather flimsy plot devices to involve the main character in the killings. I've always been much more a fan of the plot where the detective involved is actually somehow charged with discovering who the killer is. For one thing, having "a nose for mystery" isn't a substitute for being trained to catch bad guys, and it's also less of a stretch if the person is involved in multiple mysteries over the years. Here we have the character who's involved in what's apparently her third series of violent events in a year or so, and of course it stretches credulity. There's also the issue of Jance's penchant for building characters from book to book. This makes them rather like soap operas, but you can't miss an episode (and I didn't read the first two here). So my opinion is somewhat colored by this fact, and perhaps would be stronger in her favor if I had read them.
That being said, this is still a pretty good book, well-written and amusing. I enjoyed it, and would recommend it.
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Loved It!, February 29, 2008
Jance does it again with the third installment of her Ali Reynolds series. Reynolds was "cut loose" from her previous job and her previous marriage in the beginning of the series. She started writing a blog on the Internet and soon she was connecting with fans and other people who were experiencing things similar to her. Being an investigative journalist positions her to investigate missing people, and a host of other things. This series is contemporary with the use of the Internet and current technology.
This installment finds Ali in a slump after dealing with the events of the previous two books. This book deals with several different plots, but Jance weaves them together well. Have you ever read a book, and after the climax thought, "I wish there was more?" This book has it. One of the plots came to a suspenseful conclusion and there were still lots of pages left in the book. There is a butler introduced in this book who I just love and I hope he will be in future books. I can't wait for the next one.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Teens Beware, February 5, 2008
J.A. Jance has written several can't put it down books, but Hand of Evil as an addition to the new Ali Reynolds series is not in that category. I recommended it to several friends with teens who text message because of the subject matter. Hand of Evil has two parallel stories that never quite blend in a novel because the plot structure does not sustain the premise.
Jance fans will miss the sparkle of earlier characters except for the teenager Crystal Holman. Crystal is a victim, who makes terrible mistakes, her story has a familiarity for anyone who has ever know or worked with abused young women. Even the lead character seems like a spider from a cracked windshield going in many directions without a purpose.
Nash Black, author of WRITING AS A SMALL BUSINESS and SINS OF THE FATHERS.
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