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Summary
Summary
Juggling a family and a career is never easy--and it's becoming a real challenge for Sheriff Joanna Brady. Coping with the impending delivery of her second child as well as a staff shortage, the last things Joanna needs are two serious crimes.
First, the body of an unidentified man is found in the desert, all of his fingers savagely severed. Following the scant clues, Joanna learns that the victim was an ex-con who had served twenty years in prison after confessing to the murder of his pregnant wife. During his last days he was seen following and photographing a young woman.
Then one of Joanna's officers is brutally attacked and left for dead while on an unau-thorized stakeout. Because the officer is one of its own, the department throws its resources into finding her attacker.
But the murder haunts Joanna. Being a sher-iff is no longer an empty position she wants to hold--somehow it has become what she is. Her job is to avenge man's inhumanity toward man, and finding out who the victim was and why he is dead is what she has been summoned to do with her life. Strapping on a bulletproof vest, she'll risk everything to see that justice is done.
Author Notes
Judith Ann (J. A.) Jance was born in Watertown, South Dakota on October 27, 1944. She received a degree in English and secondary education in 1966 and a M. Ed. in library science in 1970 from the University of Arizona. Before becoming an author, she taught high school English, worked as a school librarian on a Native American reservation, and sold insurance.
She is the author of many popular mystery series including the J. P. Beaumont Mystery series, Joanna Brady Mystery series, and the Ali Reynolds series. She won the American Mystery Award for Without Due Process in 1992 and for Failure to Appear in 1993. Both of these titles are books in the J. P. Beaumont Mystery series. In 2014, her fiction book, A Last Goodbye, made the New York Times bestseller list.
Random Acts, a title in A Joanna Brady and Ali Reynolds Novella Series, made the New York Times bestseller list in 2016.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (2)
Publisher's Weekly Review
The solid 12th entry in bestseller Jance's lively crime series (Exit Wounds, etc.) to feature Joanna Brady, sheriff of Cochise County, Ariz., finds Joanna newly reelected and about to have her second child. When the cops learn that a murdered man with a sordid personal history has links to one of Arizona's most prominent judges, Joanna's investigation turns up a connection to an early case of her late father's, an honored sheriff. Next, the brutal beating of Jeannine Phillips, an Animal Control officer, leads the sheriff's department, its staff already stretched thin, to a confrontation with a notorious ranching family and suspected illegal immigrants. Then Joanna's obnoxious in-laws arrive for the imminent birth. In a heart-stopping climax, Joanna shoots a suspect as he tries to kidnap two children. Subplots dealing with social issues such as alcoholism and dysfunctional family relationships lend moral weight. As usual, Jance deftly brings the desert, people and towns of southeastern Arizona to life. Author tour. (One-day laydown July 25) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Library Journal Review
It is always a pleasure to meet Sheriff Joanna Brady in a new adventure. Here, she is nine months pregnant when the mutilated body of an unidentified man is found in the desert. Then Jeannine Phillips, one of the Animal Control officers on a stakeout, is so severely beaten that her prospects for survival are uncertain. Soon Joanna's life becomes even more complicated when her in-laws arrive uninvited for the birth of their grandchild. Jance, author of 11 other Joanna Brady mysteries as well as the J.P. Beaumont series, tells a top-notch story, drawing readers into the world of an Arizona law enforcement officer who must juggle her job and her personal life while awaiting the birth of her second child. Jance excels in her portrayal of how people cope with life. For other mysteries about women in the Southwest, try Sue Henry's The Tooth of Time and Betty Webb's Lena Jones mysteries. Jance lives in Seattle and Tucson. [See Prepub Mystery, LJ 4/1/06.] (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Excerpts
Excerpts
Dead Wrong A Novel of Suspense Chapter One Ken Galloway sauntered up to the lectern and wrenched the neck of the microphone to its full height. Then, smiling, he gazed out at the "Candidate's Night" audience assembled in the spacious meeting room of the Sierra Vista Public Library. "First off," he said with an engaging grin, "let me say that I'm in favor of motherhood and apple pie. After all, if it weren't for my mother, where would I be?" The anticipated ripple of polite laughter drifted through the crowd. This was Ken's favorite way of opening his stump speeches. It always served him well in getting things off to a good start. Beginning with a familiar joke was a way of putting his whole political agenda front and center. Seated off to Ken Galloway's right, Sheriff Joanna Brady steeled herself for what she knew would come next. She folded her hands in her lap, plastered a faint and entirely fake smile on her face, and willed her ears not to turn red. This far into the campaign she should have been used to her opponent's constant references to what he described as her "delicate condition." Joanna should have been accustomed to it, but she wasn't. The subject still rankled her every time Ken Jr. brought it up. She resented his constantly drawing attention to her growing belly and casually discussing her pregnancy again and again as though she were nothing more than an obliging live-action mannequin in some high school sex-ed classroom. "The point is," Ken continued, "when my brothers and I were little, our mother stayed home and took care of us." Yes, Joanna thought, because your father took off and left Lillyan Galloway penniless. She ended up living on welfare and raising her kids on Aid to Dependent Children. But Ken Galloway never mentioned that part of his wonderfully idealized family history, and neither did Joanna. "Call me old-fashioned," Ken went on, "but I think there's a lot to be said for mothers being at home with their kids. Cochise County is a big place. There have been times in the last four years when Sheriff Brady hasn't been as responsive to her duties as she might have been due to the very real conflict of having a child at home. How much more difficult will it be for her to attend to law enforcement needs when she has two children to contend with, including a newborn baby?" In the back of the room a woman, applauding furiously, rose to her feet. "That's right, Ken! Way to go!" Eleanor Lathrop Winfield shouted. "You tell her." Joanna's mother's enthusiastic outburst was enough to propel Joanna out of her dream. She awakened panting and sweating, but the dream stayed with her for several long minutes. Although those were likely Eleanor's true feelings, to Joanna's personal knowledge her mother had never made any such statement -- at least not in public -- not during the campaign or after it. The election itself was now a full three months in the past. Joanna had managed to eke out a narrow 587-vote victory, so she should have been over the campaign nightmares, but she wasn't. Night after night, in some variation of that same dream, she was perpetually running for office, and night after night her mother's continuing disapproval was always with her. She reached out, longing to cuddle up to Butch's comforting presence, but he wasn't there. He had left early the previous afternoon for El Paso and a weekend mystery conference, where he would be on what his editor called the "limbo" panel -- made up of first-time writers whose books were sold but not yet published. Butch's first novel, Serve and Protect , wasn't due out until September, but his editor, Carole Ann Hudson, had engineered his being placed on a panel at the conference so he could "start getting his name out there." "I'm not going to go running off to El Paso for three days when the baby's due in less than a week," Butch had declared. "Due dates aren't exactly chiseled in granite," Joanna had responded. "Look at Jenny. She was ten days late, and I was in labor for the better part of eight hours before she was born. Think about it. El Paso is only five hours away, especially the way you drive. If I called you right away, you'd be here in plenty of time. Besides, Carole Ann must have gone to a lot of trouble to make this happen, including having bound galleys available. You need to be there." But now, with the nightmare still lingering and her back hurting like crazy, Joanna wished she hadn't insisted Butch go. What she would have liked more than anything right then was one of his special back rubs. And although massages helped, Joanna was tired of having a sore back. Tired of not being able to sleep on her stomach. Tired as hell of being pregnant. And, as if to add its own two cents' worth, the baby stirred suddenly inside her and began hammering away at her ribs. "All right, all right," she grumbled. "Since we're both wide awake, I could just as well get up." Pulling on a wool robe that no longer connected around her middle, Joanna waddled out into the kitchen and started heating water. The bouts of morning sickness that had plagued the beginning of her pregnancy no longer existed, but her aversion to the taste of coffee lingered. Tea, not coffee, was now her drink of choice. Joanna stood at the back door while Lady, the loving Australian shepherd she had rescued the previous summer, went outside to investigate the news of the day. In the crisp chill of early morning, Joanna savored the gentle warmth of the heated floor on her bare feet. Radiant heat in the floor was one of the things Butch had built into their rammed-earth house. At the time he suggested it, Joanna had thought it a peculiar thing to be . . . Dead Wrong A Novel of Suspense . Copyright © by J. Jance. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold. Excerpted from Dead Wrong 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.