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CREDIBLE THREAT by J.A. Jance

CREDIBLE THREAT

by J.A. Jance

Pub Date: June 2nd, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9821-3107-4
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster

The archbishop of Phoenix, threatened with death by a woman determined to avenge the long-ago suicide of her abused son, turns for help to Ali Reynolds and B. Simpson, the married couple behind the cybersecurity firm High Noon Enterprises, and one of them responds in spades.

Still grieving the death of her friend Alexandra Munsey, Ali is in no mood for further heroics. But she’s struck by the sincerity and humility of Archbishop Francis Gillespie, who’s helped High Noon before, when he shows the couple the anonymous threats against him that have been dropped in collection baskets around the diocese. He has no idea who’s sending them, but readers do: It’s housewife Rachel Higgins, whose life has ground to a hellish halt ever since her son, David, fatally overdosed several years ago. When a chance discovery reveals that David was one of the victims of his swim coach, predatory priest Paul Needham, Rachel vows revenge—not against Needham, whose prison term was cut short when he died of AIDS in 2008, but against his enablers in the church. The irony that Gillespie has stood out from most churchmen because of the unflagging, “no-holds-barred” measures he’s taken against abusive priests is completely lost on her as she methodically plots to execute him and frame homeless Desert Storm veteran Jack Stoneman for his murder. When a nonnegotiable demand from a Swiss client who faces a ransomware threat takes B. to Zurich, Ali is left virtually on her own to protect the archbishop from a determined and increasingly resourceful killer.

Patient, professional, and uninspired, without a single memorable character, plot twist, or surprise.