Most Helpful Customer Reviews
46 of 49 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
"She awakened to the sound of roaring flames.", December 10, 2009
In J. A. Jance's "Trial by Fire," forty-seven year old Alison (Ali) Reynolds is a financially well-off widow who has just completed remodeling her home in Sedona, Arizona. Her son, Chris, is married and her parents are healthy and active. There is no special man in her life and, although Ali is a trained journalist, she is currently unemployed. When the sheriff of Yavapai County, Gordon Maxwell, asks her to handle media relations for his department, she accepts his offer. Although she has no formal training in law enforcement, Ali has a weapons permit and, in the past, she has gotten into "one scrape after another, sometimes dealing with some very bad people." Ali's new position turns out to be a bit more stressful than she had anticipated. Not only do her colleagues resent her, but she must also remain calm under extreme pressure. The case occupying everyone's mind involves arson and attempted murder. An unknown perpetrator left a woman bound and naked in a burning house. Although Ali's mission is to handle the press, she is not content to sit on the sidelines. Instead, she aggressively pursues leads and ultimately endangers her life to catch the perpetrator. Jance is a competent writer who keeps her well-constructed plot moving along briskly. She skillfully depicts her Arizona setting and has created a group of varied and intriguing characters, especially the multilingual Sister Anselm Becker. Sister Anselm is a trained psychologist who works as a patient advocate. The nun's patients look upon her as their guardian angel. However, she can turn into a pit bull when a pushy visitor tries to harm those in her care. The heroine, Ali, is spunky, smart, fearless, curious to a fault, and compassionate. Although there is a minor romantic subplot, it is downplayed. The focus is on the chief suspects: an apparently grieving husband and his two venal and obnoxious stepchildren. Jance's themes are typical for novels of this type: greed, family dysfunction, infidelity, competition among law enforcement agencies, and the media's insatiable appetite for sensationalism. The book's main flaw is its overly complicated and unrealistic ending. Still, "Trial by Fire" should appeal to fans of mainstream thrillers free of profanity and gore.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Too Busy Thriller, Not Recommended, December 25, 2009
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
Ali Reynolds is getting ready to enjoy some leisure when Sheriff Gordon Maxwell offers her a temporary job as his media representative. She fends off reporters' questions with skill and grace, but after one day on the job she is sidelined, to sit on the hospital burn unit and wait for information about a newly admitted burn victim. A woman, identity unknown, who was pulled at the last minute (and probably too late) from a deliberately set house fire. Ali spends her time in the burn unit waiting room, hoping to gather some clues abou the mystery woman, but soon finds herself drawn in to a web of complicated relationships and underhanded schemes. From public relations she soon slides into amateur sleuthing, and finds herself in an ever more dangerous situation. So far, so good, but the author has filled the book with enough characters to populate a small town, each with their own personal history, baggage, unhappy childhoods and marital cheating. Author Jance tell us all about them, along with their own side-plots and sub-plots, most of which are never resolved. Do we ever find out who the mystery woman really is? Or, who set the fire? Or why? And what about the Paul Klee painting that was burned up in the fire? You'll have to read the book to find out, but it's hardly worth the effort. J.A. Jance is a best-selling author, but this book is only mildly interesting, and leaves more questions unanswered than resolved. It might be good for an airplane read, but overall I don't recommend it. Reviewed by Louis N. Gruber.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Decent Read, January 5, 2010
This was a good read, with a few nitpicky bits which I'll rant about at the end so as not to spoil anything After a slightly weak opening (a victim in a fire actualy wakes in the blaze and thinks 'why would I be in hell') Trial by Fire, begins as Ali Reynolds is offered a job as a media consultant or some such, for the police. She recieves a fairly icey reception from her new colleauges, but this has nothing to do with the plot so its not really mentioned again. Ali joins forces with a nun who cares for the burnt lady mentioned above, and together they try to find the perp behind it all. In Jance style the main focus in on characters personal lives and background rather than car chases or gunfights, so if thats what you like then this is the book for you. A Touch of ranting. First of all, the nun instructs Ali to buy a wig and sit in the waiting room of the burn unit to spy on the family of the burned woman. Not so much a bad plan, but its just such a ridiculous image. In fact much of the book is spent with Ali in a wig listening in to the family. Its a little silly and a little yawn worthy Second of all, the story gets starts to become melodramtic towards the end. While Jance had skillfully set up a number of characters who may have been the attackers, in the end the whole thing was only over a stolen painting (a very valuable one at that but it was still a stretch to imagine someone going to the trouble to commit a murderous arson to steal it) So the author created a contrived backstory for the villian, which was something along the lines of the victim's dead ex-husband raped his sister (the villian's mother) but she didn't get any money out of it. Anyways it was all a bit much. Ali also jumps into bed with a new love interest, and not that I'm an Ali Reynolds expert but it all seemed a bit sudden and surprising, for what I thought her character was like. Anyways some sillyness aside its good read and I admire Jance's focus on characer building and attempts to make her characters have 'real life' problems.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
|
