Paradise Lost (Joanna Brady Mysteries, Book 9) [Hardcover]

J.A. Jance (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 7, 2001

J.A. Jance 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 the luck of the draw has made them tentmates 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. Jenny 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. Now, however, Joanna's foremost concern is the job she was elected to do, and she sets out on the trail of the dead woman's lowlife husband, who cleaned out their accounts before he vanished.The stakes get drastically higher in very short order when something happens to poor damaged and neglected Dora 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.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Joanna Brady returns in J.A. Jance's ninth adventure featuring the Arizona sheriff. Joanna and Butch, her new husband, are trying to build their dream house, adjust to their marriage, and cope with the preteen mood swings of Joanna's 12-year-old daughter, Jenny. During a Girl Scout camping trip to Cochise County, Jenny and another girl sneak out of their tents after lights out to have a cigarette and stumble on the body of a murder victim. Joanna is initially more concerned about her daughter's misbehavior than the murder at Apache Pass--after all, smoking can kill you--but then Dora Matthews, Jenny's coconspirator, is killed. Joanna's fear that her daughter might be in the killer's sights adds an extra dose of adrenaline to her efforts to find the man who left the body for Jenny and Dora to find. Add that worry to the sheriff's suspicion that Butch may be having an affair with a former girlfriend and you have the makings of a typical Joanna Brady novel: long on intelligence, empathy, and humanity and short on shootouts and suspense. Jance's other series, featuring Seattle cop J.P. Beaumont, features more intricate plotting and louder firepower. Brady's not as complex as Beaumont or as fully developed a character, but she leads with her heart, and her struggles to balance her personal and professional life bring interest. The Southwest landscape comes to life in the author's capable hands, and while the narrative's pacing is a little pokey, there's lots of lovingly evoked scenery to make it a pleasant trip. --Jane Adams

From Publishers Weekly

In Cochise County (Ariz.) sheriff Joanna Brady's ninth outing, bestseller Jance verges on soap opera, but avoids the worst excesses of the type. Mother-daughter relationships get a real workout, as Joanna's brittle connection with her mother is always testy and the emotional fulcrum between Joanna and her 12-year-old daughter, Jenny, is always shifting. But plenty of other combinations of blood and bonding get a workout, too. Jenny and a camping partner discover the body of a naked woman while Joanna and new husband Butch Dixon are out of town to attend a sheriffs' convention and a wedding. Joanna's personal and professional lives collide heavily as concerns for her daughter, her department, her husband and her future intertwine. With a mix of old and modern police work (interviews, crime-scene analysis, sophisticated forensics) and intense personal problems (Jenny may be targeted by the killer, Butch may have cheated on Joanna, Joanna's mother's meddling may have gotten a girl killed), Jance keeps things roiling from start to finish. With more than two dozen mysteries to her credit, the author has learned a great deal about pacing and it's evident in this page-turner, which nicely builds suspense and throws in some nifty surprises as well. Jance's sense of place remains strong, whether here in the beautifully rendered rural Arizona setting or in the rainy Seattle of her J.P. Beaumont mysteries. (Aug. 7)Forecast: With a one-day laydown and strong marketing backing, including a 12-city tour and radio and print advertising, this book will hit the lists fast.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow; 1st edition (August 7, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 038097729X
• ISBN-13: 978-0380977291
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (36 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #581,147 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

J.A. Jance is the top 10 New York Times bestselling author of the Joanna Brady series; the J. P. Beaumont series; three interrelated thrillers featuring the Walker family; and Edge of Evil, the first in a series featuring Ali Reynolds. Born in South Dakota and brought up in Bisbee, Arizona, Jance lives with her husband in Seattle, Washington, and Tucson, Arizona.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars ANOTHER TOPNOTCH YARN FROM JANCE, August 9, 2001

By 

Gail Cooke (TX, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Paradise Lost (Joanna Brady Mysteries, Book 9) (Hardcover)

Reading the first paragraph of a J.A. Jance novel quickly tells you that a pro is at work. After penning over two dozen mysteries this author knows how to pace suspense, and when to surprise. Her characters are not larger than life but ones to whom readers can easily relate. As if this weren't enough she spins a topnotch yarn.

With "Paradise Lost" the sheriff of Cochise County, Arizona, Joanna Brady, attempts to track down a ruthless killer. But this time it's more than just sleuthing as usual because the murder victim's body was found by Jenny, Brady's 13-year-old daughter.

In one of thrillerdom's greatest mismatches, Jenny has been paired with Dora Matthews for a weekend Girl Scout campout at Apache Pass. While Jenny is guileless, innocent, Dora is a pregnant young girl with an absentee father and an out-of-touch drug addicted mom. When the girls take an after lights out walk they find the body of a Phoenix heiress.

It is not too long before tragedy also befalls the unfortunate Dora. What more does Brady need to realize that a whacko killer is on the loose, doing in any potential witnesses, perhaps her own daughter?

Jance shines with descriptions of the stark Arizona terrain, and excels at drafting pedal to the metal suspense.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars J.A. Jance cranks up the intensity, August 22, 2001

By 

booksforabuck "BooksForABuck" (Long Beach, CA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Paradise Lost (Joanna Brady Mysteries, Book 9) (Hardcover)

When her daughter and a fellow scout find a corpse, and then the fellow scout is killed, Sheriff Joanna Brady springs into action. She means to protect her daughter no matter what and no sacrifice, even promises to her new husband, will get in the way. Brady goes after the killer(s) with dogged determination and all of the scientific help modern criminal labs can bring to the table.

Like some of the earlier Joanna Brady mysteries, I did find some missing details here. Whatever happened to Maggie MacFerson, for example, after she threatened to destroy Brady's career? Because Jance does such a fine job in developing her characters and because she adds true emotional intensity to the involving mystery, I found I didn't mind.

Jance does an excellent job interweaving the mystery with the emotional and personal lives of her characters. As Brady is losing the race with the murders, she is also losing her connection to her mother, her daughter, and her husband. The harder she tries, the more she risks everything she wants out of life. Resolution of these personal matters is every bit as important as the resolution of the mystery, and Jance does a fine job delivering a satisfying conclusion to both.

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Soft-edged, August 15, 2001

By 

Candace "thepageturner" (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Paradise Lost (Joanna Brady Mysteries, Book 9) (Hardcover)

This is a readable, but, I'm afraid, a not very complex or suspenseful thriller featuring Cochise County, Arizona Sheriff Joanna Brady. Joanna's teenage daughter and her bad-girl tentmate Dora sneak away from Girl Scout camp and stumble across a woman's battered body. Only days later, Dora is also murdered, which makes Joanna logically fear that her daughter will be next. There are a few twists and turns in the story which will keep you going even though you have probably figured out who did it quite a bit before.

The location is nicely rendered, with the added nuance that, due to the rural nature of Cochise County, characters are constantly driving from one place to another. This gives Jance the opportunity for some neat place-setting touches.

But there is a lot of telling rather than showing characters' feelings and motivation, and many of the minor characters are weakly developed. In three lines of dialogue, one character goes from "she said" to "she wailed" to "she whispered" in what is surely an impossibly rapid rollercoaster of emotion. There is a lot of that "he said boldly" and "she said sadly" kind of writing in "Paradise Lost" which relaxes whatever emotional grip the book might get on a reader.

J.A. Jance is already a bestselling author, but a good editor should be working with her to bring her writing to another level and earn her a wider readership.