Book 3

Day of the Dead

by J. A Jance

Published 20 July 2004
A shocking and electrifying thriller from this New York Times bestselling author. For more than thirty years the case has remained stone cold -- the brutal murder of a local Papago girl, her butchered body found stuffed into a large cooler left on the side of Highway 86. No one ever paid for the horrific crime...except, that is, for the victim's loved ones who suffer to this day. Brandon Walker, once the Sheriff of Pima County, Arizona, no longer feels he has a purpose. A reluctant retiree living in the long shadow of his wife Diana Ladd, a successful author of true crime books, he is bored with golf, and more so with life. Salvation comes with an invitation to join the ranks of The Last Chance, an exclusive, nationwide fraternity of former cops and forensic experts who look into unsolved murders that have baffled local law enforcement agencies. And one such case is staring Brandon Walker in the face with cold, dead, entreating eyes; a murder investigation that may have been mishandled by his department when he was a young lawman.
The trail of a sadistic, calculating, and blood-chillingly efficient killer soon leads Brandon into a strange world at the unlikely border between forensic science and tribal mysticism; a place where evil hides behind a perfect facade. Now, seeds of terror sown three decades earlier have bloomed and are bearing awful fruit. A forgotten homicide in the Arizona desert is only the beginning of the nightmare that is about to ensnare a diligent ex-cop and his family; for Brandon Walker is the only one still alive who can unravel a blood knot of terror and obsession that will free a dark truth more frightening than he ever imagined.