How long can the burning desire for revenge last? For disgraced cop-turned-convict Frank Muñoz, the dream of retribution allowed him to survive his 20-year prison term. Now out, he has plans for those who deserted him: his girlfriend Danielle, his ex-wife Sylvia, and the two Pasadena police officers who put him behind bars. One of those former officers, Hal Holden, is now a chauffeur. As he drives passenger B. Simpson to the airport, someone runs them off the road. But who was the target? Simpson and his wife, Ali Reynolds, run High Noon Enterprises, a cybersecurity company in Arizona. As police in multiple jurisdictions work to solve the crime, High Noon uses its AI software, lovingly called Frigg, to analyze the moving puzzle pieces. What they discover is a multi-state murder spree 20 years in the making, but they have to figure out how to use Frigg's info, which was gathered through illegal hacking. VERDICT Jance's 17th Ali Reynolds title (following Unfinished Business) is a fast-paced thriller. It combines a police procedural with robotic research in a tale of vigilante vengeance on overdrive.--K.L. Romo

In bestseller Jance's uneven 17th Ali Reynolds mystery (after 2021's Unfinished Business), disgraced ex-cop Frank Muñoz, recently released from prison, is hell-bent on taking revenge on his wife, his girlfriend, and the police detectives who got him arrested for a money-laundering scheme 20 years earlier. Meanwhile, Ali's husband, B. Simpson, founder of the cybersecurity company High Noon Enterprises, is on his way to the Phoenix, Ariz., airport for a ransomware conference in London, along with his driver, ex-cop Hal Holden, when they're run off the freeway. Both B. and Hal are seriously injured in what appears to be an accident, but the reader knows that Hal was one of the detectives who helped put Frank behind bars. Not knowing of this connection, B. and Ali wonder whether someone is trying to prevent High Noon from being represented at the conference. Ali flies to London in B.'s place, and when she returns home, she sets out to unravel what's going on. She eventually uncovers a complex plot that threatens those closest to her. Well-defined characters make up only in part for lengthy backstories that slow the action. This is not the place to start for newcomers. Agent: Alice Volpe, Northwest Literary. (Mar.)

Frank Muñoz is a dirty cop involved in corruption, bribery, and money laundering. His crimes eventually catch up with him, and he's jailed for 20 years. Furious at being betrayed by his ex-wife, ex-girlfriend, and two cops, he's set on revenge. From prison, he finds a murder-for-hire scheme run by a fellow inmate and has already had two of his betrayers dispatched. Now out of prison, he's ready to finish off the last two. Next on his list: ex-cop turned limo driver Hal Holden. While taking B. Simpson, a wealthy businessman, to the airport, Holden's car goes off the road, and the men are seriously injured. B.'s wife, journalist turned sleuth Ali Reynolds, is pretty sure the "accident" was deliberate and launches her own investigation. In a case that moves from Minneapolis to Oregon to Pasadena to Las Vegas, she's able to end Muñoz's bloody revenge spree but only with the help of her loyal techie assistant and a hard-working parole officer. In the seventeenth in the series, Jance again delivers the multilevel plotting and fast-paced action that her fans have come to expect from her.

Cybersecurity expert Ali Reynolds has to stand aside for an army of other sleuths across several states to thwart the murderous plans of a recently paroled criminal out for revenge. Even if you don't count his abusive treatment of Danielle Lomax-Reardon, his lover, former Pasadena cop Frank Muñoz began his crime spree even before being released from the Lompoc Federal Correctional Complex, where he'd been confined since he confessed to tipping off the powers behind a money-laundering club that they were about to be raided. Funded by the shadowy figures who'd promised him $500,000 if he did his time without naming names, and working with well-connected Lompoc lifer Salvatore Moroni, he'd arranged hits on Danielle and Jack Littleton, one of two fellow Pasadena cops who'd agreed to testify against him. Once he's out, he relocates to Las Vegas with plans to hire lowlifes to kill Hal Holden, the other cop, who's now retired and running a shuttle service, and Sylvia Rogers, the wife who'd divorced Frank, remarried, and moved outside Portland to be with her more loving second husband. When the men hired to kill Holden crash into his car, he's carrying B. Simpson, Ali's husband and partner in High Noon Enterprises, leaving both men critically injured but not dead and drawing Ali into a case that eventually attracts official scrutiny from Arizona, California, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, and Minnesota, leading to "a jurisdictional free-for-all." As Jance multiplies subplots and characters, introducing new backstories as late as Chapter 65, her reliance on High Noon's all-but-sensate AI helper, Frigg, seems to edge her ever closer to the futuristic world of J.D. Robb. Teems with as many details as the phone book and not much more engaging. Less breadth, more depth, please. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.