From the Publisher

Juggling a family and a career is never easy -- and it's becoming a real challenge for Sheriff Joanna Brady. Coping with the impending delivery of her second child as well as a staff shortage, the last thing Joanna needs are two serious crimes.

First, the body of an unidentified man is found in the desert, all ten of his fingers savagely severed. Following the scant clues, Joanna learns that the victim was an ex-con who had served twenty years in prison after confessing to the murder of his pregnant wife. In his last days he was seen following and photographing a young woman.

Then one of Joanna's officers is brutally attacked and left for dead while on an unauthorized stakeout. Because she's one of their own, the department throws its resources into finding the officer's attacker.

But the murder haunts Joanna. Being a sheriff is no longer an empty title she wants to achieve -- somehow it has become what she is. Her job is to avenge man's inhumanity to man, and finding out who the victim was and why he is now dead is what she has been summoned to do with her life. Strapping on a bulletproof vest, she'll risk everything to see that justice is done.

About the Author
J. A. JANCE is the New York Times-bestselling author of the J. P. Beaumont series, the Joanna Brady series, and three interrelated thrillers featuring the Walker family. Born in South Dakota and brought up in Bisbee, Arizona, Jance lives with her husband in Seattle, Washington, and Tucson, Arizona.

Publishers Weekly

In Jance's 12th Joanna Brady novel, the sheriff of Cochise County, Arizona, is faced with two major professional cases: the murder of a self-confessed wife killer recently released from jail and the brutal rape and beating of an animal control officer. She's also dealing with new and unproven deputies and trying to finding a home for a python snake and way too many confiscated killer pit bulls. In addition, she is about to give birth to her second child, an event that precipitates the unwanted arrival of her in-laws. Sheriff Brady's problems pose no great difficulty for reader Ericksen. She lets Jance's event-packed plot do most of the heavy lifting while she reads the story simply and effectively. Ericksen prefers to differentiate speakers, be they men, women or children, by attitude and pacing rather than pitch. She can push her vocal interpretation when appropriate, providing several unique, credible south of the border accents, for example, or indulging in a little heavy breathing when the very pregnant Sheriff Brady faces danger while strapped in a confining Kevlar vest. Simultaneous release with the Morrow hardcover (Reviews, May 8). (Aug.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

In her latest offering, Jance presents another strong female protagonist who endures seemingly impossible circumstances. Joanna Brady is the sheriff of a desert town in Arizona, and she also happens to be nine months pregnant. As she is supposed to be preparing to slow down and begin her maternity leave, she is presented with two major cases that need immediate attention. One of her officers is almost killed investigating a dog-fighting ring, and a man, previously sentenced to prison for killing his pregnant wife, has been found dead. Add to the mix Joanna's teenage daughter, meddling mother, husband, irritating in-laws, and a motley crew of officers, and our sheriff has her hands full. Despite only a slightly above-average plot, the writing is decent, and the production is really quite good. Susan Ericksen gives a fine and engaging performance, handling the multiple characterizations very well. Not an essential purchase, this is best suited for fiction and/or mystery collections in large public libraries.-Nicole A. Cooke, Montclair State Univ. Lib., NJ Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Cochise County, Ariz., sheriff Joanna Brady (Partner in Crime, 2002, etc.), nine months pregnant and almost too big for her Kevlar vest, solves one of her father's old cases. Although his pregnant wife's body was never found, Bradley Evans, who thought he might have killed her in a drunken blackout, confessed to her murder and spent 25 years in prison for it. Released, sober and a lay member of the prison ministries, Evans lasts only two years on the outside before someone kills him and cuts off his fingers. The homicide falls to Joanna, but she's short-staffed-one deputy has prostate cancer, another's in ICU from a near-fatal beating-and sidetracked by the nasty O'Dwyer brothers' dog-fighting ring, the swarms of illegals crossing the Mexican border and her mother and mother-in-law, who brandish words like swords in disapproval of her. When she discovers Evans had been stalking a young woman who was the spitting image of his wife, she exhumes her father's case files and journals. Was Mrs. Evans alive? Did she give birth to a daughter? Was Bradley Evans framed? The resolution will involve DNA testing for Huntington's disease, a close look at several marriages and divorces and a marginally plausible baby swap. Typical Jance fare: lots of plotting, not all of it well-thought-out, and a generous helping of schmaltz. Congrats are in order, however, on the birth of Joanna and Butch's son Dennis.

Product Details

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Table of Contents

Read a Sample Chapter

Dead Wrong

HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.

Ken Galloway sauntered up to the lectern and wrenched the neck of the microphone to its full height. Then, smiling, he gazed out at the "Candidate's Night" audience assembled in the spacious meeting room of the Sierra Vista Public Library.

"First off," he said with an engaging grin, "let me say that I'm in favor of motherhood and apple pie. After all, if it weren't for my mother, where would I be?"

The anticipated ripple of polite laughter drifted through the crowd. This was Ken's favorite way of opening his stump speeches. It always served him well in getting things off to a good start. Beginning with a familiar joke was a way of putting his whole political agenda front and center.

Seated off to Ken Galloway's right, Sheriff Joanna Brady steeled herself for what she knew would come next. She folded her hands in her lap, plastered a faint and entirely fake smile on her face, and willed her ears not to turn red. This far into the campaign she should have been used to her opponent's constant references to what he described as her "delicate condition." Joanna should have been accustomed to it, but she wasn't. The subject still rankled her every time Ken Jr. brought it up. She resented his constantly drawingattention to her growing belly and casually discussing her pregnancy again and again as though she were nothing more than an obliging live-action mannequin in some high school sex-ed classroom.

"The point is," Ken continued, "when my brothers and I were little, our mother stayed home and took care of us."

Yes, Joanna thought, because your father took off and left Lillyan Galloway penniless. She ended up living on welfare and raising her kids on Aid to Dependent Children. But Ken Galloway never mentioned that part of his wonderfully idealized family history, and neither did Joanna.

"Call me old-fashioned," Ken went on, "but I think there's a lot to be said for mothers being at home with their kids. Cochise County is a big place. There have been times in the last four years when Sheriff Brady hasn't been as responsive to her duties as she might have been due to the very real conflict of having a child at home. How much more difficult will it be for her to attend to law enforcement needs when she has two children to contend with, including a newborn baby?"

In the back of the room a woman, applauding furiously, rose to her feet. "That's right, Ken! Way to go!" Eleanor Lathrop Winfield shouted. "You tell her."

Joanna's mother's enthusiastic outburst was enough to propel Joanna out of her dream. She awakened panting and sweating, but the dream stayed with her for several long minutes. Although those were likely Eleanor's true feelings, to Joanna's personal knowledge her mother had never made any such statement -- at least not in public -- not during the campaign or after it.

The election itself was now a full three months in the past. Joanna had managed to eke out a narrow 587-vote victory, so she should have been over the campaign nightmares, but she wasn't. Night after night, in some variation of that same dream, she was perpetually running for office, and night after night her mother's continuing disapproval was always with her.

She reached out, longing to cuddle up to Butch's comforting presence, but he wasn't there. He had left early the previous afternoon for El Paso and a weekend mystery conference, where he would be on what his editor called the "limbo" panel -- made up of first-time writers whose books were sold but not yet published. Butch's first novel, Serve and Protect, wasn't due out until September, but his editor, Carole Ann Hudson, had engineered his being placed on a panel at the conference so he could "start getting his name out there."

"I'm not going to go running off to El Paso for three days when the baby's due in less than a week," Butch had declared.

"Due dates aren't exactly chiseled in granite," Joanna had responded. "Look at Jenny. She was ten days late, and I was in labor for the better part of eight hours before she was born. Think about it. El Paso is only five hours away, especially the way you drive. If I called you right away, you'd be here in plenty of time. Besides, Carole Ann must have gone to a lot of trouble to make this happen, including having bound galleys available. You need to be there."

But now, with the nightmare still lingering and her back hurting like crazy, Joanna wished she hadn't insisted Butch go. What she would have liked more than anything right then was one of his special back rubs. And although massages helped, Joanna was tired of having a sore back. Tired of not being able to sleep on her stomach. Tired as hell of being pregnant. And, as if to add its own two cents' worth, the baby stirred suddenly inside her and began hammering away at her ribs.

"All right, all right," she grumbled. "Since we're both wide awake, I could just as well get up."

Pulling on a wool robe that no longer connected around her middle, Joanna waddled out into the kitchen and started heating water. The bouts of morning sickness that had plagued the beginning of her pregnancy no longer existed, but her aversion to the taste of coffee lingered. Tea, not coffee, was now her drink of choice.

Joanna stood at the back door while Lady, the loving Australian shepherd she had rescued the previous summer, went outside to investigate the news of the day. In the crisp chill of early morning, Joanna savored the gentle warmth of the heated floor on her bare feet. Radiant heat in the floor was one of the things Butch had built into their rammed-earth house. At the time he suggested it, Joanna had thought it a peculiar thing to be . . .

Continues...

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Excerpted from Dead Wrong by J. Jance Copyright © 2006 by J. Jance. Excerpted by permission.
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