Unfinished Business by J.A. Jance is a suspenseful story that leaves room for real life - family, business, and compassion, Enjoyable to have J.P. Beaumont included.

As is usually the case with J.A. Jance and her bestselling Ali Reynolds series, Unfinished Business is a good thriller with plenty of twists and turns. Ali and her husband B.’s security business, High Noon Enterprises, is growing and they need to hire some experts to help. Mateo, who has just made parole is just getting out of prison; he insists he is not guilty of the murder of his girlfriend, but has served 16 years anyway. He remembers working for Stu Ramey and writes to him to ask for a letter of recommendation; Stu remembers how good Mateo, who has a computer degree, and was a good employee; Stu is happy that while in prison Mateo has kept up to date with new technology by working in the prison library. He is brought on as an employee of High Noon. Meanwhile, one of the High Noon employees has gone missing, and Ali and B., along with law enforcement are trying to find her before she is harmed or killed. That seems like a lot for a novel, but it works well.

Jance is an excellent storyteller, and is able to combine the three separate plots to make one very exciting and surprising dénouement that will keep readers on their toes. Her books, including this one, move quickly and have plenty of building suspense. Not only are Ali and B. well developed (and beloved) characters, but the supporting characters such as Stu Ramey and Cami Lee, as well as Mateo are also well-developed and seem like real people.

Ali believes that Mateo is innocent and gets him in touch with PI J. P. Beaumont (a detective in another excellent Jance series) to clear his name, while dealing with personal problems with her parents and the big problem of finding Cami Lee.

All told, this is a novel that J. A. Jance fans will relish, and those who aren’t familiar with her will want to read. Excellent.

Special thanks to NetGalley for supplying a review copy of this book.

An excellent addition to the series that is even better for those who have read the earlier books as they are familiar with the characters. A good plot keeps moving and keeps the reader guessing.

This book was sent to me free for Kindle by Netgalley for review. I have always enjoy the books by this author except the one with the robot person...this is one...just something about it that I do not enjoy. However, this author weaves another story of intrigue, while including family situations...some good and some sad...try this one...This author is fantastic...

This new book in the Ali Reynolds mystery series is a delightful read with a satisfying ending. I wish the first third of the book was faster-paced, but the wait was well worth it.

I didn’t realize that this book was No. 16 in a series until I had already started reading it. 😅 Thankfully, it can be read easily enough as a standalone.

I gotta be honest, I almost DNF’d this book multiple times during the first couple chapters because I was so bored and completely uninterested in the characters and plot. But I decided to keep chugging along when I saw that the other books in this series all have solid ratings on Goodreads because I figured that meant this book would have to improve at some point, right? So I ended up skipping ahead to the 35% mark because I hoped the plot would’ve picked up by then...but not so much. I was hesitant to skip much more because I didn’t want to end up completely lost, but it was pretty rough going until the plot picked up in the second half of the book.

The writing itself was good; it flowed well and the dialogue between characters wasn’t clunky or stilted. I really liked the idea behind the plot - I thought the premise of this book was interesting and a unique take for a crime fiction/mystery novel.

I think that I would’ve enjoyed this book a lot more if I had been a long-time reader of the series, because that’d mean that I would’ve spent years reading these books and becoming emotionally invested in the characters and their lives. But because I came into this series so late in the game, I needed the writing to draw me in or the characters to hook me into *this* book, and that aspect just wasn’t there. Maybe I’m missing something, but this book didn’t connect for me.