Judith A Jance

Dora Matthews and Jennifer Brady, both thirteen, couldn't be less alike -- yet the luck of the draw has made them tentmates at a Girl Scout Memorial Day weekend camping trip at Apache Pass. Dora is a wild child, a pregnant, fatherless waif with a missing junkie mother. Jenny is the innocent daughter of Joanna Brady, the sheriff of Cochise County, Arizona. In the cool blackness of the high desert night, they slip away at Dora's prodding. What they...

"Before he retired, J. P. Beaumont had looked forward to having his days all to himself. But too much free time doesn't suit a man used to brushing close to danger. When his longtime nemesis, retired Seattle crime reporter Maxwell Cole, dies in whats officially deemed to be an accidental fire, Beau is astonished to be dragged into the investigation at the request of none other than the deceased victim himself. In the process Beau learns that just...

With grit, courage and dogged determination, Joanne challenged the status quo -- and won. Now, as newly elected Sheriff of Cochise County, Arizona, she must battle the prejudice and hostility of a mistrustful, male-dominated police force -- and solve a grisly double homicide that threatens to tear the sleepy desert community to pieces. For the two bodies baking in the harsh Southwestern sun are connected by sinister threads that reach back generations...

"Years ago, Amos Warren, a prospector, was gunned down out in the desert and Sheriff Brandon Walker made the arrest in the case. Now, the retired Walker is called in when the alleged killer, John Lassiter, refuses to accept a plea deal that would release him from prison with time served. Lassiter wants Brandon and The Last Chance to find Amos's "real" killer and clear his name. Sixteen hundred miles to the north in Seattle, Mel Shames is leaving the...

A prisoner languishes in a Phoenix jail cell, accused of brutally slaying his estranged wife. No one believes the man is innocent, except the new female sheriff of Cochise County, in town for a crash course in police training. Joanna Brady is out of her jurisdiction-and possibly in over her head. For a human monster is on the prowl, hiding the grisly evidence of his horrific crimes in the vast emptiness of the Arizona desert. And an impromptu investigation,...

"Arizona sheriff Joanna Brady returns in this outstanding new mystery set in the beautiful desert country of the Southwest. With a baby on the way, sudden deaths in the family from which to recover, a re-election campaign looming, and a daughter heading off for college, Cochise County Sheriff Joanna Brady has her hands full when a puzzling new case hits her department, demanding every resource she has at her disposal. Two women have fallen to their...

"J.A. Jance does not disappoint."

—Washington Times

The Chattanooga Times calls New York Times bestselling author J.A. Jance, "One of the best—if not the best," and this classic suspense masterwork featuring Seattle investigator J.P. Beaumont emphatically proves the point. In Taking the Fifth, a gruesome and very unusual murder plunges the intrepid Beau into a lethal cinematic nightmare. Michigan's Flint Journal

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Police academy-trained former reporter Ali Reynolds is contacted to investigate the grisly murder of a gold-digging divorcee on behalf of a woman accused of the crime. Lynn Martinson is dating the dead woman's ex-husband, and she and her boyfriend Chip Ralston have been charged. Ali is simultaneously drawn to the case of A.J. Sanders, a frightened teen with secrets of his own. He's the first to find the body in the Camp Verde desert when he goes to...

"After taking down the man responsible for his best friend's death, Stuart Ramey thinks the case is finally closed. That is, until Stu finds himself left with a multimillion dollar fortune in Bitcoin in a desperate bid by Frigg, a rogue A.I. program created by the killer, to keep itself from being fully deactivated. To sort out his situation and take Frigg down for good, Stu enlists the help of Ali Reynolds and the rest of his cyber security colleagues...

An old woman, a hoarder, is dying of emphysema in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. In cleaning out her house, her daughter, Liza Machett, discovers a fortune in hundred dollar bills hidden in the tall stacks of books and magazines that crowd every corner. Tracing the money's origins will take Liza on a journey that will end in , where Sheriff Joanna Brady is embroiled in a personal mystery of her own. A man she considers a family friend is found dead...