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,...

For the first time, critically acclaimed, New York Times bestselling suspense master J.A. Jance brings together her two most beloved creations: Arizona sheriff Joanna Brady and Seattle investigator J.P. Beaumont. The dead woman on a cold slab in the Arizona morgue was a talented artist recently arrived from the West Coast. The Washington State Attorney General's office thinks this investigation is too big for a small-town female law officer to handle,...

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...

"Driven by a compulsion that challenges his self-control, the man calling himself Charles Milton prowls the rodeo circuit, hunting young women. For years, he has been meticulous in his methods, abducting, murdering, and disposing of his victims while leaving no evidence of his crimes--or their identities--behind. Indigenous women have become his target of choice, knowing law enforcement's history of ignoring their disappearances. A cold case has just...

As if juggling a family, including the impending birth of a second child, a career and a staff shortage at the Sheriff's office aren't enough, Sheriff Joanna Brady has to deal with two serious crimes. The first is the dead body of an ex-con who was found in the desert with all his fingers severed. The second is the brutal attack of one of her officers while on unauthorized stakeout. Being a sheriff is what she is and Joanna will stop at nothing to...

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...

When an elderly but free-spirited widow is cruelly murdered and her body left in the desert, Sheriff Joanna Brady's investigation starts with the victim's greedy offspring and a mysterious live-in gentlemen, but soon extends to the murky waters of corruption in high places.

"The Navajo Nation police are on high alert when a U.S. Cabinet Secretary schedules an unprecedented trip to the little Navajo town of Shiprock, New Mexico. The visit coincides with a plan to resume uranium mining along the Navajo Nation border. Tensions around the official's arrival escalate when the body of a stranger is found in an area restricted for the disposal of radioactive uranium waste. Is it coincidence that a cult with a propensity for...

This time Sheriff Joanna Brady may expect to see her maternity leave through to completion, but the world has other plans when a serial homicide case surfaces in her beloved Cochise County. Rather than staying home with her newborn and losing herself in the cold cases to be found in her father's long unread diaries, Joanna instead finds herself overseeing a complex investigation involving multiple jurisdictions.