Description
A missing teenager and an octogenarian found dead of apparently natural causes are pretty run-of-the-mill cases in Bisbee, Arizona, where Sheriff Joanna Brady is focusing on the last-minute details of her upcoming wedding. In this latest outing in Judith Jance's Brady series, the connection between the two events is a thin one. In the author's capable hands, however, it's enough to drive this well-plotted mystery to a credible conclusion. Fifteen-year-old Lucy Ridder dreads her mother's release from prison, eight years after she was convicted of killing Lucy's beloved father. Lucy is aware that her mother's priority is not a family reunion but the retrieval of a mysterious diskette entrusted to Lucy by her dad shortly before his death. After inadvertently witnessing her mother's brutal slaying by a stranger who's also hot after the diskette, Lucy vanishes. It takes most of the novel for Joanna to figure out that Lucy's disappearance is tied to her mother's murder, and for good reasons. Besides the distraction of her pending nuptials, the sheriff has been accused of killing her elderly, beloved neighbor for financial gain. Because the reader knows the truth of both situations very early in the game, Joanna's delayed awareness doesn't pack as much wallop as it might. The greater mystery is whether she'll strangle her wedding-obsessed mother before she and her too-good-to-be-true fiancé make it to the altar. --Jane Adams From Publishers Weekly Southwestern mysteries continue to grow in popularity, with Jance's series, set in southern Arizona, one of the strongest entries in the subgenre. The new novel to feature Sheriff Joanna Brady opens at the entrance to a desert canyon called the Cochise Stronghold, where Sandra Ridder, who is part Apache, is trying to retrieve an item she buried eight years ago, before going to prison for killing her husband. The next day hikers find her corpse, while Sandra's 15-year-old daughter, Lucinda, and the girl's pet red-tailed hawk go missing. Could Lucinda, who seems to be a troubled loner, have killed her mother as revenge for her father's murder? Joanna starts to investigate shortly before she's to be married. Then Clayton Rhodes, the neighbor who helps feed Joanna's animals, dies suddenly, and unexpectedly bequeaths his ranch to her. Clayton's estranged daughter feels she should have inherited the property. Unreasonably and viciously, she blames Joanna for exerting undue influence over her father. The tangled threads of Joanna's personal life come close to overwhelming her professional one, and she has to exercise all of her time management skills to keep the murder inquiry on track. Her fianc?, Butch Dixon, comes off as way too perfect to be human, but his parents, in an amusing touch, are seriously dysfunctional. Sometimes the dialogue is stiff, but generally this is a solid installment in a worthy series. The Arizona desert, as usual in Jance's mysteries, plays an unforgettable part in this atmospheric tale. Mystery Guild dual main selection. (July) Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Library Journal Cochise County Sheriff Joanna Brady's personal and professional identities collide like runaway trains in this eighth adventure in the Joanna Brady series (Outlaw Mountain). A week before her marriage to Butch Dixon, Joanna inherits the adjacent ranch when her kindly old neighbor perishes in an exhaust-filled garage. Though the old man's estranged, well-heeled daughter Reba shows up wielding accusations, as usual Joanna's professional life eclipses personal problems. Half-Apache, teenaged loner Lucy Ridder goes on the lam with Big Red, the red-tailed hawk that is her pet and only friend, and when Lucy's newly paroled mom, Sandra, is found murdered in a remote wash, Joanna must name young Lucy "a person of interest." Was Sandra, once a militant Native American college student, in over her head with unknown persons, or was she simply the victim of domestic violence having shot Lucy's father in self-defense? Lucy and Big Red are the endearing pair in this suspense charmer. Highly recommended for all libraries. --Susan A. Zappia, Paradise Valley Community Coll., Phoenix Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Booklist In a remarkable series of nine novels, Jance has created a fully realized universe in Cochise County, Arizona. This time County Sheriff Joanna Brady is working two cases in the weeks before her wedding to Butch Dixon. The first involves the death of her octogenarian handyman, friend, and neighbor, Clayton Rhodes. Clayton's daughter, Reba, returns from California to spew venom and collect her inheritance. When Reba learns Clayton bequeathed his ranch to Joanna, she accuses the sheriff of killing her father. The other case involves the murder of a woman freshly released from prison after serving eight years for murdering her husband. Lucy, the woman's 15-year-old daughter and prime suspect in the new murder, has vanished. The theme of adults understanding their parents permeates this novel, as Joanna tries to come to terms with her new in-laws, Reba violently struggles to reconcile her feelings toward her long-estranged father, and Lucy reassesses her mother's actions and motives. A quality entry in a quality series. George Needham Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved From Kirkus Reviews With her mother, her former mother-in-law, her future mother-in-law, her daughter, and her fiancé all jockeying for her attention before the big day--her wedding is just a week away--Cochise County, Arizona, sheriff Joanna Brady hopes for a little peace and quiet at the office, but it is not to be. Unpopular teenager Lucy Ridder and her pet hawk Big Red are missing, and her mom Sandra, only one day past an eight-year prison term for killing her allegedly abusive husband, is lying dead in a culvert. Did Lucy murder mommy for doing in daddy those long years ago? Or did mommy's death hinge on the contents of the Tupperware container she buried just before being carted off to jail? Joanna's barely gotten started worrying about the Ridder woes when her octogenarian neighbor Clayton Rhodes dies and leaves her his acreage, placing her squarely in the crosshairs of his disinherited daughter Reba. What's more, an office romance will reactivate memories of Joanna's premarital pregnancy; the sheriff in the neighboring county won't share information; an unbreakable computer code pops up; and chances of Joanna finding Lucy ahead of a counterfeit federal agent look bleak. One more will die before Joanna can settle down to her wedding jitters, but by then it's too late--she's off to Paris on her honeymoon.The eighth Brady case (Outlaw Mountain, 1999, etc.) is most notable for the behavior of bridegroom Butch, who is so helpful, so unquestioningly supportive, that you know he'll make Joanna a great wife. -- Copyright © 2000 Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. "Any story by Jance is a joy." -- -- Chattanooga Times "As always, Jance smoothly solves Joanna's professional and personal problems in a credible and entertaining fashion." -- -- Orlando Sentinel "Credible and entertaining." -- -- Orlando Sentinel "Jance's Southwestern mysteries show up on bestseller lists...One can see why." -- -- Milwaukee Journal Sentinel "Suspenseful, action-packed." -- -- Dallas Morning News J. A. Jance is the New York Times bestselling author of the J. P. Beaumont series, the Joanna Brady series, the Ali Reynolds series, five interrelated thrillers about the Walker Family, and one volume of poetry. Born in South Dakota and brought up in Bisbee, Arizona, she lives with her husband in Seattle, Washington. Read more
Features & Highlights
- In the night-still canyons of the Arizona desert, a girl is on the run. Alone but for her beloved red-tailed hawk, she flees from the dark shadows of her young life, the horror she has witnessed…and the terror that now stalks her.
- New York Times
- bestselling author J.A. Jance returns with her eighth novel in the highly acclaimed Joanna Brady mystery series. Set against the backdrop of the modern west, this gripping tale finds Sheriff Brady juggling a precarious overload in both her personal and professional lives. About to be married, Joanna's facing a daughter turning twelve and going on twenty, a meddlesome mother micro-managing her wedding, and new in-laws arriving any day. The sudden death of her much-loved neighbor and handyman, Clayton Rhodes, creates further turmoil, leaving Joanna shocked, saddened, and the target of Clayton's irate and irrational daughter, who accuses the Sheriff's Department of covering up a possible murder.
- But amidst the uproar, the report of a homicide at Cochise Stronghold in the Dragoon Mountains quickly captures Joanna's full attention. An Indian woman has been found shot to death--a woman recently released from prision after serving time for the manslaughter killing of her husband. She is the mother of a missing fifteen-year-old, Lucy Ridder.
- The death at first appears to be a case of domestic rage finally exploding'and a troubled teen runaway may be a victim, or a cold-blooded killer. Yet as Joanna deals with the long-standing troubles of Clayton Rhodes' family and digs deeper into the mysterious life of Lucy and her family, she discovers that investigating family hostilities is leading her down a twisted trail of hatred, greed, and far-reaching consequences--and into a dangerous world where violence is the first response and long buried secrets are a reason to kill…or die.
- Once again, J.A. Jance delivers a gritty, deftly written thriller that unfolds on a vivid landscape of raw beauty and unrelenting danger. And, as always, Sheriff Joanna Brady brings the setting to life with the sensitivity, spirit, and intense passion for justice that makes Jance novels ring with authenticity.
