Devil's Claw (Joanna Brady Mysteries, 8) - Softcover

Jance, J. A

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0061998982 ISBN 13: 9780061998980

Publisher: Harper, 2010

Synopsis

A spellbinding story of life and death, rage and murder in the silent Arizona night from New York Times bestselling author J. A. Jance

In the desert, a Native American woman is dead—an ex-con once jailed for the murder of her husband—and her teenage daughter has vanished into the long shadows of the night-still canyons. A dedicated law officer, Sheriff Joanna Brady of Cochise County has suffered stoically through loss and pain—yet she has never wavered in her commitment to duty and the pursuit of justice. Now, as she stands on the brink of a new life and new happiness, death is summoning her once more, calling her down a twisted trail of hatred, greed, and devastating consequence to the black heart of the Dragoon Mountains.There is no respite yet for Joanna Brady—only a terrifying excursion into a world of passion and violence, where long-buried secrets are the best reasons of all to kill . . . or to die.

About this title

Review:

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

About the Author:

J. A. Jance is the New York Times bestselling author of the J. P. Beaumont series, the Joanna Brady series, the Ali Reynolds series, and five interrelated thrillers about the Walker family, as well as a volume of poetry. Born in South Dakota and brought up in Bisbee, Arizona, Jance lives with her husband in Seattle, Washington, and Tucson, Arizona.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harper
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0061998982
• ISBN 13: 9780061998980
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 496