Walker Family Mysteries

5 primary works

Hour of the Hunter

by J. A Jance

Published 1 November 1991

Six years after her husband killed himself after being accused of murdering an Indian girl, Diana Ladd relies on a Native American wise woman and a local police detective to protect her and her son from her late husband's partner, recently released from prison.

Kiss of the Bees

by J. A Jance

Published 14 July 1993

Twenty years ago, a darkness rose up out of the blistering heat of the Arizona desert and descended upon the Walker family of Tucson.

A personified evil, a serial killer named Andrew Carlisle, brought blood and terror into their world, nearly murdering Diana Ladd Walker and her young son, Davy. Now much has changed. The family has grown larger. There's Lani, the beloved adopted daughter - a beautiful Native American teenager "kissed by the bees" and destined, according to Tohono 0'othham lore, to become a woman of great spiritual power. And now that the psychopath Carlisle has died in prison, Brandon and Diana Walker believe that their long nightmare is finally over.

They are wrong.

The monster is dead, but his malevolence lives on... in another.

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.

Day of the Dead CD

by J. A Jance

Published 20 July 2004

Queen of the Night

by J. A Jance

Published 27 July 2010

The New York Times bestselling author brings back the Walker family in a multilayered thriller in which murders past and present connect the lives of three families

Every summer, in an event that is commemorated throughout the Tohono O'odham Nation, the Queen of the Night flower blooms in the Arizona desert. But one couple's intended celebration is shattered by gunfire, the sole witness to the bloodshed a little girl who has lost the only family she's ever known.

To her rescue come Dr. Lani Walker, who sees the trauma of her own childhood reflected in her young patient, and Dan Pardee, an Iraq war veteran and member of an unorthodox border patrol unit called the Shadow Wolves. Joined by Pima County homicide investigator Brian Fellows, they must keep the child safe while tracking down a ruthless killer.
In a second case, retired homicide detective Brandon Walker is investigating the long unsolved murder of an Arizona State University coed. Now, after nearly half a century of silence, the one person who can shed light on that terrible incident is willing to talk. Meanwhile, Walker's wife, Diana Ladd, is reliving memories of a man whose death continues to haunt her.

As these crimes threaten to tear apart three separate families, the stories and traditions of the Tohono O'odham people remain just beneath the surface of the desert, providing illumination to events of both self-sacrifice and unspeakable evil.