CRUEL INTENT
J. A. Jance
Touchstone
Suspense
ISBN: 9781416563792
After resigning from her job as an investigative television reporter and becoming a widow while in the process of divorcing her husband, Ali Reynolds has returned to her roots in Sedona, Arizona. When her odious agent hears that she purchased Arabella Ashcroft’s desperately-in-need-of-repair Victorian manse, he talks her into using the project as the theme for a “reality show.” He pressures Ali into agreeing to do the program by promising that her house would be the first whole house makeover for the pilot episode. But he doesn’t fool Ali, who has been his client “forever.” She thinks he probably is going to find an insignificant role for her and boost the career of a new face as host --- a male one.
Nevertheless, she agrees. The film crew shadows the renovation crew with a camera, and they seem to have their own agenda. They hope to find some “hot item” they can sell for their own reasons. And of course, a battle erupts every so often when the cameras are in the way or the builders are not quite worrying about the next close-up. But overall, production moves along its slow-paced path. And though they are slightly behind schedule, Ali hasn’t pressed the panic button as CRUEL INTENT by J.A. Jance opens.
Just painting a room in one’s house can be stressful, but a complete overhaul is more than stressful --- it’s like being on an out-of-control rollercoaster while riding upside down. But Ali is an optimistic and pragmatic person who is willing to put up with the chaos because she is eager for the house to become a home as soon as possible and wants to have Thanksgiving in her new digs. To her good fortune, when she purchased the house, she inherited Leland Brooks, the Ashcroft butler who sees Ali as a bird with a broken wing and is determined to heal her. She lives with her son, a teacher in a nearby high school, who just became engaged to a colleague. The two young people add a breath of fresh life to a narrative that soon becomes very strange. Ali’s parents are alive, well and happy as their restaurant, which is the central meeting place for all the townspeople.
The action picks up when homicide detective Dave Holman tears into the middle of the parked vehicles that sit like abandoned settlements beside the construction site. When Ali stands to greet him, she is shocked by the expression on his face. He rudely asks for the whereabouts of Bryan Forrester, the general contractor on the job. When Bryan appears, he delivers the news that Bryan’s wife, Morgan, is dead --- brutally murdered on the lawn outside their house --- and that his little twin girls found her when they got home from school. Bryan immediately asks about his children and is informed that they are at the police station. Ali can barely take the words in and doesn’t understand why the sheriff is being so harsh and cruel as he pushes the stricken man into the back seat of the police cruiser. From where she stands, Ali thinks Bryan looks very much like a guilty man on his way to police headquarters.
Bryan is questioned and then released by law enforcement to make his way back to the construction site. He tells Ali that they have a problem with her $30,000 custom-made kitchen cabinets. The company didn’t receive the agreed-upon half payment, so they never started making the cupboards. Since Ali gave the builder the money months ago, she is stunned. He tells her that he had trusted his wife to do the books for years and never really oversaw that end of the business. Only now does he discover that she’s been embezzling funds for a long time, thus setting him on a rapid ride into bankruptcy. He needs Ali to trust him and pay him the rest of the money now; if not, she will end up months behind on her house and he will be out of business. Along with the hijacked cash, Morgan has been embroiled in several extra-marital affairs. She has milked him dry, expected to take off with one of her men, and instead she now lies dead in the morgue. Bryan becomes the perfect patsy, especially when the sheriff finds a bloody hammer in the bed of his pickup truck --- another nail in a perfect frame job.
As the investigation gains momentum, the sheriff learns that other women have been killed under similar circumstances and the body count is much higher than anyone thought. No one knows if more women have been killed by this same man and just have not been found yet. The murderer certainly has “issues,” but we don’t get to know much about him. The plot centers on Ali and her way of getting involved in everyone’s business --- very much like her mother. CRUEL INTENT has its moments of shining brightness, and Jance fans will love it. While not great literature, it’s a good story told by an experienced and careful writer.
--- Reviewed by Barbara Lipkien Gershenbaum
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