Mystery Author J.A. Jance to Appear at Belmont Library

J.A. Jance, who has more than 20 million copies of her books in print, returns with her latest Ali Reynolds mystery, “Deadly Stakes," an instant bestseller when published this February.

Jance will be visiting the San Francisco Bay area , and included is a trip to the Belmont Library, in conjunction with the Belmont Library with Books Inc. program.

Jance will be in Belmont, 1110 Alameda De Las Pulgas, on April 10 at 7 p.m.

She will also appear in Livermore on April 11 and in Santa Rosa on April 13.

After suffering heartbreak at the hands of a cyber-sociopath in Jance’s Fatal Error, Lynn Martinson believes she has finally found her happily-ever-after with new boyfriend Chip Ralston.  But when Ralston’s gold-digging ex-wife is found murdered and abandoned in Arizona’s Camp Verde desert, the couple finds themselves in jail with a rapidly expiring plea deal designed to make them testify against one another.

Lynn’s mother comes to Ali Reynolds for help, and the police academy-trained former reporter soon finds herself working against the clock to clear two innocent names.  She is simultaneously drawn to the case of A.J. Sanders, a frightened teen with secrets of his own.  He is the first to find the body in an isolated clearing when he goes to retrieve a mysterious box buried by his estranged father—a box that turns out to be filled with $300,000 in poker chips.

When another victim is discovered near the first crime scene, it seems that A.J. and Lynn’s cases are more closely related than anyone could have imagined.  Ali uncovers clues connecting counterfeiters, antagonistic parents, grasping socialites, and Phoenix’s social elite.  Although her friends in the police department grow increasingly irritated by her involvement with the cases, she must use her connections both in and outside of the law to stop a ruthless killer from claiming another victim.

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