Life is good for Joanna Brady in the small desert community of Bisbee. She has Jenny, her adored nine-year-old daughter, and solid, honest, and loving husband, Andy, a local lawman who's running for Sheriff of Cochise County. But her good life explodes when a bullet destroys Andy Brady's future and leaves him dying beneath the blistering Arizona sun. The police brass claim that Andy was dirty-up to his neck in drugs and smuggling-and that the shooting was a suicide attempt. Joanna knows a cover-up when she hears one…and murder when she sees it. But her determined effort to track down an assassin and clear her husband's name are placing herself and her Jenny in serious jeopardy. Because, in the desert, the truth can be far more lethal than a rattler's bite

Sheriff Joanna Brady of Cochise County, Arizona, finds herself in the midst of danger and deception when she attempts to exact revenge for the murder of her police officer husband

The sheriff of Cochise County, Arizona, widow Joanna Brady becomes caught up in a deadly family tragedy initiated by a pair of star-crossed lovers, while trying to prove herself in the male-dominated world of law enforcement and struggling to cope with echoes of Tombstone 's infamous Clanton gang

As a militia movement invades Arizona 's Cochise County, a gun dealer dies mysteriously, and his stock of high-powered weapons vanishes, Sheriff Joanna Brady investigates two other murders that point to armed separatist Alton Hosfield, a probe that threatens her own life and those of her family

When the body of an elderly widow turns up in the desert, Sheriff Joanna Brady searches for a killer among the victim's greedy offspring, her mysterious much younger live-in handyman turned lover, and corrupt local politicians

The death of her beloved neighbor finds Sheriff Joanna Brady investigating a possible murder right over the picket fence

A terrifying truth is buried at the juncture where lethal greed and unassailable power converge. The dead woman was an artist recently arrived from Washington State, cruelly cut down in the early stages of a promising career. Now all that remains of Rochelle Baxter lies on a cold slab in the Cochise County morgue, and Sheriff Joanna Brady knows that murder has once again infected her small desert community. But there is more to this homicide than initially meets the eye – and more to the victim, who died while supposedly under the conscientious protection of the government. A big-city legal establishment has no faith in the abilities of a small-town sheriff, let alone a female sheriff. Instructed to swallow her indignation, Joanna awaits the arrival of the “help” Washington ’s attorney general is sending her: the newest member of the state’s Special Homicide Investigation team – a man named Beaumont. Bisbee, Arizona, is the last place J.P. Beaumont wants to be. The ghosts of a painful past are too numerous there, and his reluctant “partner,” Sheriff Brady, resents his intrusion and cannot help but make her feelings known. But the road they are forced to travel together is taking some unexpected turns, running two dedicated servants of the law headfirst into the impenetrable stone walls of a shocking conspiracy of silence. For Brady and Beaumont ’s hunt is disturbing a very deadly nest of rattlers, and suddenly trust is the only option they have. On their own in the Arizona desert, they know death can be cold and quick. And nobody is watching their backs here… they’ll have to watch each other’s

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