Customer Reviews

Tombstone Courage

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Joanna Brady is elected sheriff of Cochise County, Arizona after the death of her husband, who had been a candidate for this position. It seems like a mixed blessing, however, when she is greeted by a double homocide followed by the resignations of two of the top men in the department. Some of her employees have a hard time accepting a woman, who is untrained in law enforcement, as their new boss. Added to this, Joanna has to constantly reassure her daughter, who has already lost a parent, that she will be careful in her new job. This book moves a little slowly at times, but the action definitely picks up at the end, and it is a good read.

This is a must read after Desert Heat. It is able to stand on its own. Again, J.A. Jance is able to make it seem as if anyone could have committed the murder -- keeping the secret to the very end.

This series has been fantastic. Although each novel can stand on it's own, I have found that reading them in order is a better idea. Later books reference earlier books and it is easier to follow the overall history of the characters in this series.

Having said that, this is a great book. Joanna has just been elected Sherrif when a grisly murder is discovered. A drugged up ex movie star, a wierd therapist, an old family fued of sorts and the stage is set for a great novel.

Joanna is a strong woman and this is a good book. It's good to read about her efforts to mourn with her daughter the loss of her husband. As she comes to grip with the past, she learns to deal with the present. Joanna's mother is an interesting character that adds a lot to this series.

Enjoy.

Joanna Brady is a candidate for sheriff of Cochise County, Arizon, at the beginning of this book. I enjoyed meeting Ms. Brady more than I enjoyed the mystery. She is a well-conceived heroine in a very well-written book. The passages dealing the relationships between Joanna and her mother and daughter ring true. I have some experience in politics, and the "political" passages are as true to life as any I have ever read. Joanna should go far in politics if the author wants her to. The book starts somewhat slowly, but when the action begins, it builds quickly. Joanna is forced to deal with office strife, the normal pressures of a new job, and the murder of a respected acquaintance. This is the second book in a series. It is usually more rewarding to begin a series with the first book, but I thoroughly enjoyed this book without having read Desert Heat, the first in the series.

There's no grace period for the newly elected Sheriff Joanna Brady. She isn't being eased into the job but instead is thrown into investigating the murder of a prominent citizen of Bisbee, Arizona. In the process of trying to solve the crime, Joanna must sort through the victim's family secrets and dirty laundry. It's once again a race against the clock to find the killer before he strikes next. You'd think this would be enough for any new sheriff, but Joanna Brady must also deal with the resentments of long-time employees not happy with the changes she's bringing to the sheriff's office.

Still not enough on her plate, Joanna must go home and deal with family issues revolving around the recent death of her husband, Andy, the former Sheriff of Cochise County. Issues like helping her daughter, Jenny, deal with the loss of her father, or trying to keep her overbearing mother at arm's length.

JA Jance has created a main character to which every working mother can relate - she's overwhelmed at times and just trying to do the best she is capable of doing. Surrounding Joanna Brady is a cast of support characters who invoke a wide range of emotions from the reader. The mother is one who frustrates, the daughter seems cuddly and a typical child, the in-laws are gifts from heaven, everyone wishes Reverend Marianne were their friend, and many will wonder how the sheriff's receptionist could qualify and be hired for her job.

Reading a JA Jance novel, with a couple of exceptions, is like becoming part of the series' family. You'll laugh, cry, become frustrated, etc. You'll live the book. It's a subtle way of drawing you into the story with both the familiar characters and the great plots.

Absolutely an addition to your must read list but I do recommend reading this series in order. Don't get me wrong, it's not mandatory to do this but doing so will give you the history of the entire group and make each new book much more enjoyable and that much harder to put down!

This is a suspenseful story.

Joanna has become the sheriff upon the death of her husband. She has a difficult crime to solve and faces difficulties in her own office and among her own staff. Many people are unhappy to see Joanna, a woman, as sheriff. Joanna (and the author) handles these issues with an appealing firmness and dignity.

Very much recommended.

This audio book contains one very intriguing mystery. It was great all the way to the end. Well done--I really liked it!

This is book two in a series of books about Joanna Brady. In this book Joanna is running for sheriff of Cochise County, Arizona.

The author, J.A. Jance, does a good job of detailing the life of Brady and I felt that I got to know her fairly well throughout the story. I thought she did an exceptional job of outlining the relationship between mother and daughter during a rough period in their lives.

This well written book takes you through the life of Brady as she runs for Sheriff just at a time that two murders are discovered in her town. The murders revolve around a 30 year old family feud of a respected family in this small town.

Although the book was fairly slow to start it picked up quickly towards the end. Maybe a bit too quickly for my taste as I felt some things were left unexplored.

Overall I found this to be an entertaining book, even though I hadn't read the first in the series. I recommend it to anyone who wants a bit of a mystery in an easy to read book.

And her name is Joanna Brady. The spunky young widow shows grit in facing her first serious case, a double homicide. The kicker is, the first one actually happened years ago, but the body has just been discovered. The skeletons come out of the closet in one of Bisbee's more respected families in this highly entertaining mystery. The ending is satisfactory, yet not spectacular, as I sense Ms Jance attempted to put more suspense into Sheriff Brady's situation than came across in the storyline. In other words, I was expecting more of a "shoot em out" type whiz bang ending than I got. Nevertheless, as with all the Brady books, this is a very pleasant read that's easy on the brain.

Experience indicates that there is no doubt about it. J.A. Jance has a way to grab our attention from the very first page and keep us enthralled until the conclusion of the novel. This one is no exception. It all starts with somebody being murdered in a brutal manner. After that scene, we start asking ourselves who that person was and what is the relationship to the events that follow in the story. And then, we are hooked.

Harold Lamm Patterson is an eighty-four-year-old man, loved and respected by everyone in town. But when his daughter Holly returns, after being gone for thirty-four years, claiming that she was abused by Harold as a child, confidence in his innocence wavers. Holly is suing her father and asking for his ranch as compensation. Harold's other daughter, Ivy, wants her father to fight back and defend what is theirs. What she does not know is that Harold carries a secret that is as dark and deadly as a secret can be.

In the meantime, Joanna Brady is running for Sheriff of Cochise County, following the murder of her husband and the previous Sheriff. There are several people in the Sheriff's office that do not like the idea of a woman with no experience in law enforcement taking that position, but when Joanna wins, they have to shape up or take a hike. Joanna's life gets complicated when as soon as she assumes her new position, she has to deal with a double murder, and one of the victims is Harold.

J.A. Jance is an expert in writing novels that are easy to read in one sitting. I am always impressed by how she excels in handling two series that are so different and still the result is magnificent in both cases. In the Joanna Brady series, she created a character that has a complex family life. Joanna has a daughter that is trying to go on after losing her father. She also has a mother that wants perfection in everything Joanna attempts. The issues resulting from Joanna's gender in her new job provide a myriad of interesting confrontations, and I am looking forward to seeing how some of these are going to be resolved in the next book. Overall, I highly recommend this book and this series, and if you have time, also check out the outstanding J.P. Beaumont series.