Web of Evil: A Novel of Suspense (Ali Reynolds) (Hardcover)

~ (Author)
Key Phrases: pink swan, wrongful dismissal suit, Paul Grayson, April Gaddis, Sumo Sudoku (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

At the start of bestseller Jance's uninspired second Ali Reynolds thriller (after Edge of Evil), Ali's husband, Paul Grayson, is killed on the eve of their divorce—by a train that hits the car where he's tied up in the trunk somewhere near Palm Springs, Calif. Ali, Paul's legal beneficiary, becomes the chief murder suspect. A popular blogger and former Los Angeles TV news anchor who's suing the station where she used to work for wrongful dismissal, Ali initiates her own investigation, enlisting the help of her mother, grown son Chris and high school friend Dave Holman, a homicide detective in Sedona, Ariz., where Ali now lives. In a series of clumsy plot developments involving Paul's fiancée, April Gaddis, and April's greedy mother, Monique Ragsdale, Ali learns that Paul was financing a performance variety of the sumo sudoku puzzle fad. Full of endless blogs and superficial characters, this one will disappoint fans of Jance's expertly written and paced Joanna Brady and J.P. Beaumont mysteries. (Jan.)
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Review

"Characters so real you want to reach out and hug -- or strangle -- them. Her dialogue always rings true."

-- Cleveland Plain Dealer --This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Touchstone; 1 edition (January 9, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1416537074
• ISBN-13: 978-1416537076
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (52 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #624,997 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing, January 25, 2007

By	A. Christie "bibliofiend508" (Plano, TX United States) - See all my reviews

In this second Ali Reynolds book, she is finally getting her divorce from the philandering husband she refers to as Fang. She drives from Arizona to California only to find that her soon to-be-ex missed the meeting. He couldn't quite make because he was murdered the night before by being stuffed into a trunk of a car and left of the railroad track. You can imagine what happened. Ali is the prime suspect since she was alone on her drive which actually passed the crime scene, and since the murder occurred before the divorce, she inherits everything despite the pregnant fiancee in the picture. Ali's mother and police detective friend come to California to help her out of the mess.

I am a big JA Jance fan from the acclaimed Joanna Brady series to the grittier Beaumont series. Both of those series with their corresponding characters are highly anticipated by me. I did read the previous Ali Reynolds novel and while the story was not as good as the other series', I did like the cast of primary characters. I'm not sure what happened in this book. Again, I was really looking forward to reading this novel, but a few chapters in, I was wondering if I was actually reading a JA Jance book. I still liked Ali as a character, but that whole blog gimmick is not needed. I started skipping the blogs and the comments. I know this is a new era of technology and everyone and their mother has a blog, but don't use one in book. Boring. The story itself was totally ludicrous and ridiculous. It reminded me more of a Evanovich Stephanie Plum Novel than a JA Jance novel. Maybe that was the point since for some ungodly reason the Stephanie Plum novels are popular, but if it was, then JA took a wrong turn. Tripe maybe be popular, but it doesn't mean it's good. Bring back Joanna and Beau or write a traditional mystery for Ali. She deserves better.

Last comment--I think it is unacceptable when a book goes to press with blatant errors. Several times the character of Tracy was referred to as Terry, and the character of Jake was referred to as Jack.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Sheer Stupidity, April 18, 2007

By	Majorca - See all my reviews

Ali Reynolds has to be the stupidist heroine ever created for a series. I thought Stephanie Plum was too stupid to tie her shoe laces but Ali Reynolds is too stupid to put the shoes on! She does everything she's been told not to do, goes against advice from far smarter people, and just ignors plain common sense with a self rightous attitude that no one is going to tell her what to do or not to do. Then she has the unmitigated gaul to play the "poor me" card when she gets in over her head - again and again and again.....And the writing was so awful I couldn't believe J. A. Jance wrote this book. The same inane information is repeated over and over as if either Jance forgot she had already told us, couldn't think af anything new to say, or thought her audience was as stupid as her character. I love the books with Sheriff Brady and Beaumont but will never force myself to read any more with Reynolds as the main character. Life's too short to read garbage.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Time-Waster, May 8, 2007

By	Charlean Souligne (Port St. Lucie, Fl. USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is the second novel to feature Jance's character Alison Reynolds. This time out, the character is ready to finalize her divorce from her cheating husband, settle the lawsuit with the network that fired her because of her age, and get on with her life as a blogger in the networking community. So she travels to LA to tie up all the loose ends.

Before the divorce can be finalized, Ali's husband is killed. She becomes a suspect. His bride -to-be, 9 months pregnant and counting, is left without husband, home, or financial means to support herself and her unborn baby. In short order we have another death, a kidnapping, another death, another kidnapping, and more deaths.

There is plenty of action, what with one dead person after another turning up around Ali. She is aided by her mother, son, father, and good friend, cop/Marine Dave, from back home in Sedona, Arizona. She is a suspect in at least two homicides and still the cops let her keep her glock.

This book disturbed me in the number of deaths that occurred, the way Ali responded to each one, and the supposed ineptitude of the LAPD, are they really that incompetent???
Ali seems to be a shallow character. There are times when she is making arrangements to care for the unborn child of her husband, and when she tries to help her long-time gardener get his job back, but I can't feel the love. Its as though she is doing these things because the writer says she should, not for what is in her heart. In other words, she does not appear to be empathetic or sympathetic, just a two-dimensional character in a book.

As for all the car chases, and midnight runs up and down the highways, this is more fiction than I care for. Let's at least have some semblance of reality in our novels. I know that this is all fiction, but couldn't Jance at least give the impression that her characters are based on real people??