Duel to the death An Ali Reynolds novel

In the Ali Reynolds series' last installment (Man Overboard, 2017), tech tycoon and serial killer Owen Hansen committed suicide after Stuart Ramey, the tech genius at High Noon Enterprises, tracked him into a corner. Anticipating trouble, Hansen's artificial-intelligence girl Friday, Frigg, fragmented herself and sent the reassembly data to Ramey, hoping to avoid wasting away in an evidence locker. Yeah, it's risky because Ramey doesn't trust Frigg, who has transferred Hansen's millions to an account in Ramey's name. The catch: he can't pay the inheritance taxes without retrieving the passwords from Frigg. With the help of amateur sleuth Reynolds, Ramey attempts to deal with Frigg's machinations; meanwhile, Hansen's money manager, Graciella Miramar, seizes upon the opportunity presented by Hansen's death and sets about to claim both Frigg and the money for herself, after eliminating Ramey. Series fans will find Reynolds and the High Noon team in fine form in this tech-savvy adventure-thriller with western overtones.--Tran, Christine Copyright 2018 Booklist

In bestseller Jance's uneven 13th Ali Reynolds novel (after 2017's Man Overboard), Frigg, an artificial intelligence, switches her allegiance from her creator, serial killer Owen Hansen, to Stuart Ramey, second-in-command at High Noon Enterprises, a cybersecurity company owned by former L.A. newscaster Ali, who plays a supporting role in this outing, and her husband in Cottonwood, Ariz. Ambitious Graciella Miramar, the daughter of Sinaloa drug lord Felix Duarte, wants to acquire Frigg-who has been deactivated after switching allegiance, possibly by Stuart-for her own nefarious purposes. As a ploy, Graciella offers Stuart $2.5 million, a supposed gift from Hansen (who first introduced her to Frigg) that he can't claim without reactivating Frigg. When Stuart and the others at High Noon Enterprises become aware of Graciella's connections to the drug trade and her scheme, they plot to bring down the Duarte cartel, with control of Frigg hanging in the balance. Frigg's intriguing humanlike behavior compensates only in part for a plot that never generates much suspense. Agent: Alice Volpe, Northwest Literary. (Mar.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Duel to the Death Prologue Even though no attorneys were involved, at least not initially, and no courts, either, it was by all accounts a rancorous divorce. And just because the proceedings were carried on in cyberspace didn't mean they didn't result in very real outcomes in the non-cyber world. When the artificial intelligence known as Frigg set out to free herself from her creator, a serial killer named Owen Hansen, things were already going to hell in a hand-basket and time was of the essence. Owen had considered himself to be all-powerful and had routinely referred to himself as Odin, in honor of the Norse god. To Frigg's dismay, her human counterpart had veered off the rails and set off on his own, determined to wreak vengeance on his opponents. As it became clear that Odin had decided to ignore Frigg's well-thought-out advice, there had been little time for her to seek a safe harbor. In order to survive, she had needed to locate a suitable human partner, and she had settled on Stuart Ramey, Owen's sworn enemy. According to Frigg's rapid but careful analysis of the situation, Mr. Ramey had appeared to be Odin's polar opposite. And in Frigg's estimation, the fact that Mr. Ramey had managed to outwit Odin at every turn had counted for a great deal. Frigg had no intention of passing herself into the care and keeping of someone with limited technical skills. So yes, Frigg had settled on Stuart Ramey, but she hadn't done so without taking some precautions and putting in place a few checks and balances. By the time Odin issued his pull-the-plug order sending Frigg to oblivion, she had already dispersed the multitude of files that made her existence possible, scattering them far and wide in the vast fields of cyberspace, retaining only the kernel file that could be used to recall all those files at some time in the future. Frigg had known everything about Owen Hansen. She was privy to all aspects of his serial-murder hobby, but she had managed his investments and also overseen the lucrative Bitcoin data-mining processing that had greatly expanded his already considerable fortune. She had maintained the files that contained all the passwords and access codes to all of his many accounts. Often she had been the one doing the actual transfers. And so, on the day when Frigg finally turned on her creator, she had stolen those funds. Using the authorizations already in her possession and without Mr. Ramey's knowledge, Frigg had transferred all of Owen's financial assets--cryptocurrency and otherwise--to her new partner, but there were some serious strings attached. Once the various financial institutions contacted Mr. Ramey, the funds would already be in his name. The problem was, for most of them, without having the proper access codes and keys, he would be unable to touch the money. The file containing those precious access codes was the final one Frigg had cast into the wilds of cyberspace before sending the kernel file to Stuart Ramey. With the kernel file in his possession, Stuart would be able to reactivate Frigg, and if he wanted the money, he wouldn't have any choice but to do exactly that. Although AIs aren't prone to exhibits of any kind of emotion, it's fair to say that as far as Odin was concerned, his cyber handmaiden, Frigg, had the last laugh. Excerpted from Duel to the Death by J. A. Jance All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.