These things happen. Even at my advanced age. And it’s time for me to be honest with myself and with the readers of this column.
I wasn’t quite halfway through #5, Skeleton Canyon (1997, 432 pages in paperback format), of J.A. Jance’s Cochise County series when it hit me. I love Sheriff Joanna Brady. If you’ve read the foundation novels (Desert Heat, 1993 and Tombstone Courage, 1995), you know that Joanna’s father was a deputy sheriff who was helping a motorist change a flat tire when he was struck by a passing car and died. Then, her husband, who was running for the elected position of sheriff was murdered. And if you haven’t read either, I haven’t given away anything that you wouldn’t find in the blurb on the back covers. Finally, because all 24 of the books (so far) refer to Joanna as Sheriff Brady, it should not be a mystery about what happens next. Here’s a thumbnail sketch of the three books that I’ve read recently.
#5 Skeleton Canyon (1997, 422 pages in paperback format)
This is a Romeo/Juliet story about Brianna O’Brien, daughter of a wealthy, Anglo racist, and Ignacio “Nacio” Ybarra, a football player at Brianna’s high school. When Brianna goes missing, David O’Brien directs his outrage at Cochise County Sheriff Joanna Brady. Like David O’Brien, readers will understand immediately that Brianna is dead. But as far as I’m concerned, the heart of the book revolves around the relationships that form between the newly-elected sheriff and the characters that populate the future episodes.
#6 Rattlesnake Crossing (1998, 422 pages in paperback format)
Clyde Phillips, a Bisbee gun dealer, dies violently. Moreover, his entire stock of high-powered assault rifles and a ton of ammunition have disappeared. Local suspicion falls on Alton Hosfield, a grouchy old rancher who has an all-consuming hatred of the government. But Sheriff Joanna Brady takes a different view. She’s interested in the activities of an environmental group that seems to be part New Age hippie while practicing cut-throat capitalism. Two characters emerge who will play important roles in future episodes: Marliss Shackleford, a gossip columnist for the Bisbee Bee, and “Butch” Dixon, the bartender whom Joanna met when she attended the Police Academy in Peoria in #3, Shoot Don’t Shoot.
#7 Outlaw Mountain (1999, 450 pages in paperback format)
Guess who’s sold his bar in Peoria, moved to Bisbee, bought a house, and has decided to write a novel. Butch Dixon has become unpredictable, and Joanna, who is somewhat smitten with him, has to balance her private life (which always centers on her eleven-year-old daughter Jenny) with her public life, which is always the target of attack by Marliss Shackleford, of the Bisbee Bee. And, of course, there’s the mystery concerning the people who have been murdered by bullets from a powerful long-range rifle.
Each novel builds on the previous ones and it’s interesting to watch Joanna adjust to being a single mother and the first female sheriff in Arizona. The books are like a television continuing “soap-opera,” (only much better) so I’ll cover three at a time in all future columns.
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Jim Glynn may be contacted at j_glynn@att.net.