A Joanna Brady mystery

21 primary works • 28 total works

Desert Heat

by J. A Jance

Published 1 February 1993

From the New York Times bestselling author comes the gripping novel that first introduced one of the most remarkable protagonists in contemporary suspense fiction: Joanna Brady.

A cop lies dying beneath the blistering Arizona sun - a local lawman who may well have become the next sheriff of Cochise County. The police brass claim that Andy Brady was dirty, and that his shooting was a suicide attempt. Joanna Brady, his devoted wife and mother of their nine-year-old daughter, knows a cover-up when she hears one... and murder when she sees it. But her determined efforts to hunt town an assassin and clear her husband's name are placing Joanna and her surviving family in harm's way - because in the desert, the one thing more lethal than a rattler's bite... is the truth.

Tombstone Courage

by J. A Jance

Published 1 June 1994

Shoot Don't Shoot

by J. A Jance

Published 1 October 1996

Dead to Rights

by J. A Jance

Published 1 October 1996

Rattlesnake Crossing

by J. A Jance

Published 1 September 1998

Sheriff Joanna Brady attempts to catch a serial killer who keeps the victims' scalps as souvenirs and uses a gun stolen from a slain arms dealer's collection as the weapon.

Outlaw Mountain

by J. A Jance

Published 6 July 1999

A joanna Brady mystery.

Paradise Lost

by J. A Jance

Published 1 August 2001

Once again the remarkable J.A. Jance - the New York Times bestselling author of Kiss of the Bees and Devil's Claw - returns us to a world of desolate beauty and lonely terror in an extraordinary new novel as heartbreaking and real as it is grippingly intense.

Dora Matthews and Jennifer Brady, both thirteen, couldn't be less alike - yet chance has made them tent mates 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. Jennifer 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 find on their unauthorized hike will change their lives forever: the body of a murdered Phoenix heiress, abandoned to scavengers and the elements.

Sheriff Brady fears the traumatic damage that her daughter's grim discovery may have inflicted on the frightened teenager. Right now, however Joanna's foremost concern is the job she was elected to do, and she sets out on the trial of the dead woman's lowlife husband who cleaned out their accounts before he vanished himself.

The stakes get drastically higher in very short order when something happens to poor damaged and neglected Doran Matthews that hits Joanna like a runaway truck. Someone believes that the two girls who were where they shouldn't have been two nights earlier are now loose ends that need to be tied up. And Joanna's own Jenny may very well be the next item on a killer's bloody agenda.

But one killer could turn out to be two - or perhaps even three. Suddenly terror has invaded Sheriff Joanna Brady's world in a form too awful to contemplate. As the nightmares of her professional and personal lives interweave - as a disturbing cloud of suspicion darkens the joy of her on barely one-month-old marriage-she knows that there are answers out in the wilderness that must be uncovered before time runs out. With everything she loves in jeopardy, one dedicated mother, wife, and law officer must piece together a deadly puzzle in which nothing seems to fit - as the clues and her keen instinct point her toward a place of secrets and bizarre cultlike obsession that some call 'Paradise.

Exit Wounds

by Stephanie Brush and J. A Jance

Published 1 January 1975

The heat is a killer in Cochise County, Arizona, with temperatures over 100 degrees. In the suffocating stillness of an airless trailer, a woman is lying dead, a bullet hole in her chest. Why someone would murder a harmless loner with a soft spot for strays is only one of the questions nagging at the local police; another is why the killer used an eighty-five-years-old, bullet fired from the same weapon that slaughtered two other women who were discovered bound, naked, and gruesomely posed on the remote edge of a rancher's land. The slayings are as oppressive as the blistering heat for Sheriff Joanna Brady, who must shoulder the added double burden of a brutal re-election campaign and major developments on the home front. With more on her plate suddenly than many big city law officers have to contend with, she must put marital distractions and an opponent's dirty tricks in the background and deal with the terrifying reality that now threatens everyone in her jurisdiction: a serial killer in their midst.
Sheriff Brady must pursue this sadistic murderer into the shadows of the past to get to the roots of a monstrous obsession and expose the permanent wounds of a crime far worse than homicide.

Dead Wrong

by J. A Jance

Published 1 July 2006

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 get the job done.

Damage Control

by J. A Jance

Published 22 July 2008

From New York Times bestselling author J. A. Jance, a suspenseful mystery from the creator of Arizona sheriff Joanna Brady and Seattle homicide detective J. P. Beaumont.

Sheriff Joanna Brady may be a working mother with a newborn child, drowning in paperwork and in need of a good night's sleep.... but nothing stops her when there are crimes to solve.

The discovery of bags containing the gruesome remains of two people leads back to a care facility with a dubious past and, perhaps, an even worse present. Meanwhile, an old Buick has plunged off the side of the mountain in the Coronado National Forest with its two passengers in tow. A note from the twisted wreck states that the pair took their own lives but the autopsy suggests otherwise. When two young women show up to feud over the inheritance, Joanna knows this is no ordinary suicide pact. She'll go all out to find the truth -no matter where it leads.

Damage Control CD

by J. A Jance

Published 22 July 2008

Judgment Call

by J. A Jance

Published 24 July 2012

From New York Times bestselling author J. A. Jance, a suspenseful mystery from the creator of Arizona sheriff Joanna Brady and Seattle homicide detective J. P. Beaumont.

When Joanna Brady's daughter stumbles across the body of her high school principal, the Cochise County sheriff's personal and professional worlds collide, forcing her to tread the difficult middle ground between being an officer of the law and a mother.

But Joanna isn't prepared for the knowledge she's about to uncover. Though she's tried to protect her children from the dangers of the world, the search for justice leads straight to her own door and forces her to face the possibility that her beloved daughter may be less perfect than she seems-especially when a photo from the crime scene ends up on Facebook. A photo only one person close to the crime scene could have taken...

Judgment Call Unabridged Low Price CD

by J. A Jance

Published 30 April 2013

The Old Blue Line

by J. A Jance

Published 17 June 2014

Butch Dixon has been taken for a ride. Not a jump in the car, see the sights kind of ride. He's been taken for everything he has. He's lost his house, his restaurant business, his savings, his car, his best friend, his faith--all to his conniving ex-wife. But that was seven years ago. He picked himself up, left Chicago, and started over in Peoria, Arizona, running the Roundhouse Bar and Grill. He doesn't look back on those bad years; there's no point. Not until two curious cops show up at the Roundhouse. Faith, Butch's ex-wife, has been murdered, and the evidence points to him. Stunned, Butch quickly realizes that the black-hearted woman is going to ruin him again, from her grave. Lucky for Butch, the Old Blue Line, a group of retired--but still sharp and tenacious--former legal and law enforcement coots, have taken it upon themselves, as a favor, to make sure he doesn't cross that thin line. After the dust settles, Butch's life is again upended--when a little red-haired ball of fire, Sheriff Joanna Brady, takes a seat at his bar.

Remains of Innocence

by J. A Jance

Published 22 July 2014

Sheriff Joanna Brady must solve two perplexing cases that may be tied together in New York Times bestselling author J. A. Jance's thrilling tale of suspense that brings to life Arizona's Cochise County and the desert Southwest in all its beauty and mystery. 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 Cochise County, where Sheriff Joanna Brady is embroiled in a personal mystery of her own. A man she considers a family friend is found dead at the bottom of a hole in a limestone cavern near Bisbee. And now there is the mystery of Liza and the money. Are the two disparate cases connected? It's up to Joanna to find out.

Remains of Innocence Unabridged Low Price CD

by J. A Jance

Published 28 April 2015

Downfall [Unabridged Low Price CD]

by J. A Jance

Published 18 September 2017

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 deaths from a small nearby peak, referred to by Bisbee locals as Geronimo. What's the connection between these two women Is this a case of murder/suicide or is it a double homicide And if someone else is responsible, is it possible that the perpetrator may, even now, be on the hunt for another victim

Downfall [Large Print]

by J. A Jance

Published 6 September 2016

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 deaths from a small nearby peak, referred to by Bisbee locals as Geronimo. What’s the connection between these two women Is this a case of murder/suicide or is it a double homicide And if someone else is responsible, is it possible that the perpetrator may, even now, be on the hunt for another victim

Field Of Bones [Large Print]

by J. A Jance

Published 4 September 2018

Sheriff Joanna Brady's best intentions to stay on maternity leave take a hit when a serial homicide case rocks Cochise County, dragging her into a far-reaching investigation to bring down a relentless killer in this chilling tale of suspense from New York Times bestselling author J. A. Jance.

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.

Filled with the beloved characters, small town charm, vivid history, intriguing mystery, and the scenic Arizona desert backdrop that have made the Joanna Brady series perennial bestsellers, this latest entry featuring the popular sheriff is sure to please J. A. Jance's legion of fans.

Field of Bones

by J. A Jance

Published 4 September 2018

Sheriff Joanna Brady’s best intentions to stay on maternity leave take a hit when a serial homicide case rocks Cochise County, dragging her into a far-reaching investigation to bring down a relentless killer in this chilling tale of suspense from New York Times bestselling author J. A. Jance.

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.

Filled with the beloved characters, small town charm, vivid history, intriguing mystery, and the scenic Arizona desert backdrop that have made the Joanna Brady series perennial bestsellers, this latest entry featuring the popular sheriff is sure to please J. A. Jance’s legion of fans.