Collateral Damage by J. A. Jance is a highly recommended mystery/procedural and the seventeenth novel in the Ali Reynolds series.

After 20 years in prison former cop Frank Muñoz is being released on parole and revenge is on his mind. Targets include his wife, mistress, and the police detectives involved in his case. One of the former cops, Hal Holden, is now retired and works as a chauffeur. Ali Reynolds' husband, B. Simpson, founder of the cybersecurity company High Noon Enterprises, is heading to a conference on ransomware in London, England, and Hal is the one driving him to the airport.

On the way there is an accident that appears suspicious and both Hal and B. are seriously injured. B. insists that Ali represent High Noon at the conference and also that the accident was done purposefully. Ali attends but also becomes a suspect. She wonders who would be trying to stop B. from attending the conference or was Hal the target?

This is a fast-paced, complex plot with a whole lot of information and action going on. There are plots and subplots and so many pieces to this puzzle that you have to pay close attention to details to follow everything that is occurring. There are also a multitude of characters that require recognition throughout the plot. You may wish you had High Noon's AI helper, Frigg, to assist you, just as characters have to rely on in the narrative for information.

However, it is an engaging investigation that is action-packed and will hold your attention until the satisfying conclusion. The characters are all interesting and distinctive as individuals. It is very enjoyable, but, admittedly, this is my first Ali Reynolds novel and it would have helped if I was acquainted with the series and reoccurring characters before jumping into the seventeenth installment.

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Simon & Schuster via NetGalley
The review will be published on Barnes & Noble, Google Books, Edelweiss, and Amazon.

Ali Reynolds’ husband B. is almost killed when traveling to the airport to attend a London business conference. The police are sure it was a planned hit. But was B. the intended victim or was he just Collateral Damage in the attempted murder of his hired driver?

Disgraced ex-cop Frank Munoz is out on parole but all he can think of is seeking revenge on the people who had put him in prison in the first place. The mistress that had betrayed him, the ex-wife who had left him, and the two police detectives who had investigated his crime were all in his crosshairs. Using his jailhouse contacts and the money the mob paid him for keeping quiet, Frank is a man with a vendetta to finish. Better now than later.

Collateral Damage is a rousing traditional thriller with a sense of urgency throughout. How will Ali keep herself from being the local detective’s number one suspect in B.’s accident? How can B. and Ali’s cybersecurity firm, with the assistance of an autistic coder and an artificial intelligence entity, help a multi-jurisdictional task force find Frank before he kills again? The answers are within this fast-paced police procedural.

Despite the rather obvious twist, this book has interesting characters and a compelling plot. 3.5 stars rounded up to 4 stars!

Thanks to Gallery Books and NetGalley for a digital review copy of the book.

J. A. Jance mysteries knows how to keep readers in her grip from the first page. Her characters come to life nand
keeps you interested right to the end,

A fast paced page turner about a man who decides to get revenge on those who sent him to prison and whose evil randomly injures the wrong man- B Simpson. Don't worry if you haven't read the earlier books in this long running series because this will be fine as a standalone, in part because the plot, if familiar, is jam packed with twists and good characters. B's wife Ali must go to London to take part in a critical conference for their cybersecurity company (she wisely takes Cami with her) but that doesn't mean she can't push hard for information about the odd group of killings that seem to surround Frank Munoz, who is newly released from prison. B's right hand man Stu uses their AI supercomputer as Ali enlists the assistance of detectives around the country. You find yourself rooting for those LEOs, as well as for the others whose lives Munoz has set out to ruin. No spoilers from me, This has good twists and a few surprises. Thanks to the publisher for the ARC. It's a good read.

So I made a mistake and requested this one without realizing it was the 17th! book in a series. I read this as a one off and while I didn’t feel lost or anything, I think it would definitely be better read in the series. Lots of action in this one and a very fast paced, entertaining read. I love the author’s writing style and will actually be adding the first 16 books onto my TBR list!

As the story begins, B Simpson is on his way to London for a critical business trip. His normal driver picks him up; however, on their normal drive to the airport they’re forced off the road. Why and who is the target? Ali ends up going to London using private jets and covers that end. However, the home end is getting alerts about the accident and the possibility of Ali being the guilty party. The involved story ends up involving at least 4 other police departments working together to solve this case with just a little help from AI. I loved this!

Different. The usual crew are not the main focus. When B is in a car wreck the past becomes very important. Loved all the new characters and how they fit in the story. B
Great addition to series.

Collateral Damage is the seventeenth book in the Ali Reynolds series. This my second book of the series and fourth book by the author. Collateral Damage is about several cold cases and revenge.

On October 31, 2017, Danielle Lomax-Reardon is working at Dahlke House, a shelter for victims of domestic abuse. Getting ready for a group session she greets the women and shares her story of how she was a victim of domestic abuse and eventually became the organization's executive director. As Danielle is leaving, she notices the shadow of a man in a streetlight barring her path. She is shot multiple times and falls to the ground where she lays knowing that she will not be found in time but that her former boyfriend is responsible for her death.

January 1, 2020 - Frank Muñoz is a disgraced former cop, is finally out on parole and focused on just one thing: revenge. He has focused on getting back at the wife who abandoned him after his arrest, the mistress who ratted him out, and the detectives who presided over his case. One by one he put hits out on them, and he is expectantly waiting to hear they have all been completed.

Ali Reynolds, and her husband and founding partner of High Noon Enterprises, B. Simpson, are preoccupied by an upcoming New Year’s business trip to London. But when Stu Ramey barges into her home with news of a car accident on the highway to Phoenix involving B.’s car everything takes a turn for the worse.

Ali finally arrives at the hospital, when B. wakes after being knocked unconscious he insists that they were deliberately run off the road and that Ali needs to take his place at a ransomware conference in London. The police investigate the accident focusing on Ali as the main suspect especially after Ali appears to have left the country very quickly.

The team will do a deep dive into who might have wanted to hurt Hal who was driving, or B. They find there are several cold cases in connection to Hal involving a newly released from prison involving Frank Muñoz and may not have been interested in B. While the local detective focuses on Ali other detectives in other states also become involved in helping to piece it all together while two more victims are in danger.

This was a very involved story. There are several events that happen in the past which are woven into the story, as well as other towns and states with multiple characters. So, it is a somewhat complex story with lots of moving parts that eventually come together for a fantastic finale.

This is the seventh story in the series. As with most of Ms. Jance’s books it deals with many issues in today’s society. This one touched on: corruption in the police force, violence against women, IT security, and revenge.
For Ali, it all begins with a car wreck that seriously injures B. and his driver.

I enjoyed the twists and turns the story took. I didn’t enjoy the corruption, revenge, and domestic violence portions but they were necessary to the story.

I was given an advanced reader’s copy from Netgalley and am not required to leave a positive review.

Thank you #NetGalley and J. A. Jance for the opportunity to read and offer my thoughts on Collateral Damage.

Although this was an Ali Reynolds featured book, it was pretty light on Ali’s involvement, but more so on others involved in High Noon (Stu, Cami and the Artificial Intelligence used by Stu). There were also many police departments and officers involved in solving several murders across the country. If you think this sounds too confusing - 🛑. It wasn’t at all difficult to follow the investigations or those carrying them out. Chapters and players were easily identified and followed from start to finish.

From the “accident” hospitalizing Ali’s husband and his driver, a retired detective, we are lead through a carefully constructed path to the resolution of a vengeful series of mob murders.

Classic J A Janice with a splash of sharp-tongued Ali Reynolds. I particularly enjoyed Cami’s role in London. Hope you do too. I’d be pleased to see her in a spin-off book.

Fast reading and hard to put down. This Ali Reynolds book takes place in several different parts of the country and a bit in England, as well. Many jurisdictions run with the information that Ali is able to provide, thanks to Stu and Frigg. A very good book.

Thank you to NetGalley for an advanced digital copy of this book.

When B. Williams, the founding partner of High Noon Enterprises, is forced off the road in a suspicious accident on the way to the airport, the assumption is that someone is attempting to keep him from attending the important meeting in London. And are his wife and business partner, Ali, and other high-level executives at risk?

B. insists that Ali attend the London conference in his stead, but makes sure she has plenty of security. But was B. actually the target of the accident? Or was someone else, specifically the limo driver who was taking him to the airport?

The company's new AI bot is looking into possible motives and actors and discovers a string of deaths across the nation that have only one thing in common: a recently released felon and disgraced police officer, Frank Munoz.

Who, or what, is behind these deaths, and how are they being done?

Thus begins a long and circuitous trail that I happily followed to its end.

J.A. Jane is one of my favorite authors, and I enjoy her Ali Reynolds series. "Collateral Damage
has the same quick pace as others in the series, but I did struggle a bit with this one. Ali and the High Noon crew seem to take a back seat in this one quite a bit, and the intertwining stories were a little difficult to connect at times.

This book will surely have you questioning who is really the victim and who is just collateral damage.

The fast-paced get-up-and-go with this book had me constantly on the edge of my seat attempting to attain the answers for Ali, Jance does an amazing job of putting together the story and giving you a front-row seat to see what happens when too many things just don't add up.

Thank you to the publisher as well as NetGalley for allowing me to read this book. A special thanks to J.A. Jance for constantly writing amazing books that I can't help but pick up.

A collaborative effort to bring down the people responsible in a slew of killings ends up bringing the investigations together to find they are all related. This was an intense hunt for justice!

Who’s really the victim, and who’s just collateral damage?

I had somehow missed out on the last few Ali Reynolds books, so I was happy to receive a review copy of the newest book in the series, Collateral Damage. And I found that all of the elements that I like in JA Jance’s books are still there: a smooth plot; interesting protagonists, including a scary smart AI; and nasty, but still believable, villains.

As the book opens, Ali’s husband, B. Simpson, is involved in an automobile wreck on his way to the Phoenix Sky Harbor airport. But although it becomes clear rather quickly that the collision was no accident, it’s far from clear which of the two men in the car was the intended victim and which was just “collateral damage”. The Arizona Highway Patrolman on the case, the somewhat oafish Detective Biba, is convinced that, as the head of an up-and-coming cybersecurity firm, B. was the target, and thus Ali, as B.’s nearest-and-dearest, is his main suspect. But Ali and the other High Noon employees aren’t so sure. After all, it seems quite possible that B.’s airport driver (and retired cop), Hal Holden, might have picked up quite a few enemies himself in his 25-year stint with the Pasadena Police Department.

Jance does a really nice job weaving together the many strands of the story, told from wildly different points of view. And although we, as readers, are given a pretty good idea about whodunnit early on, it’s still fascinating to watch as several police forces and investigators manage to piece together a puzzle that spans many different jurisdictions – with some crucial behind-the-scenes help from the High Noon folks.

All-in-all, I really enjoyed this latest foray into the Ali Reynolds series, and highly recommend it – especially for anyone who likes police procedurals. My only small beef is that a couple of threads didn’t seem to me to get wrapped up very well. First, it would have been nice to see Biba have to eat his words a bit at the end, when it becomes clear that, in fact, B. was not the target, and Ali was not the perpetrator. But there’s just a passing mention that Biba will get notified, and nothing more. And the other thread that it might have been nice to see a bit more of was what happened to the obnoxious Adrian Willoughby after High Noon’s Cami Lee puts her thumb on the scale. We’re sure something bad is going to happen to him. But it would have been fun to actually see it happen, and even get to gloat a bit. But although I might have given Collateral Damage a 4 ½ if I could, for those two issues, I had no hesitation in rounding up to 5 since I can’t.

And finally, my thanks to the publisher, Gallery Books, and to NetGalley, for the review copy.

The latest addition to J.A. Jance's Ali Reynolds series brings you twists, turns, and good police work by Ali Reynolds and the crew of High Noon Enterprises, oh and with a 'little help' of AI Frigg. When B. Simpson, Ali's husband, is injured in a car accident, it becomes obvious it was an intentional but why and who was the intended - B. or the driver is the question while B's company is finding problems hitting their internet security clients. To keep High Noon at the top Ali and High Noon tech Cami Lee must head for London to attend an all important conference while B. is recuperating. Frigg, Stu, and Ali begin to piece together the puzzle of who, what where and why events were or are happening but how do they get that information to the police to be solved. With all this unexpected activity coming all at once, Ali wants the problem solved so she, B. and the High Noon family do not become collateral damage from the activities of a man out for revenge. Highly recommended. Thank you to NetGalley and Gallery Books for this ARC.

This book is part of the Ali Reynolds series but could easily be read as a stand alone. This is a fast paced read with all sorts of twists and turns. I read the book in a day. Thank you to net galley for an advanced readers copy.

I will leave a review on Amazon and B&N on Mar 14th

Collateral Damage by J.A. Jance is the 17th book in the Ali Reynolds series, I have read several books in this series in the past but I believe I enjoyed this one most of all. This was a thrilling read full of lots of twists and turns. I would definitely recommend this book to those that enjoy a book mystery.

I received an ARC from NetGalley and Gallery Books, I am leaving this review voluntarily and the opinion expressed here are my own.

Collateral Damage will grab you from the first page. The action and characters will keep you reading to solve and follow the clues. Lots of action and several paths to travel. This is another great Allie Reynolds story.