Man Overboard: An Ali Reynolds Novel

Stu Ramey, a “brilliant software guy with the social skills of an onion,” takes a lead role in bestseller Jance’s imaginative 12th Reynolds thriller (after 2016’s Claw Back). Ramey is second-in-command at High Noon Enterprises, a cybersecurity firm owned by Ali and her husband, B. Simpson, in Cottonwood, Ariz. When Roger McGeary, a boyhood friend of Ramey’s employed by another cyber- security company in California, jumps to his death off a cruise ship into the English Channel, McGeary’s aunt turns to Ramey for answers. It turns out that the ship’s owner, genius Owen Hansen, whose father committed suicide, is targeting other children of suicides such as McGeary. While Ali handles interviews, Ramey tracks the online footprints of Hansen, who calls himself Odin, and Frigg, Hansen’s “all-knowing artificial intelligence sidekick and companion,” to whom Jance imputes nearly human characteristics. Frigg becomes a major player as Hansen and the folks at High Noon race to a climactic showdown. Agent: Alice Volpe, Northwest Literary Agency. (Mar.)