J.A. Jance – The Book Diva's Reads

Random Acts (A Joanna Brady and Ali Reynolds Novella) by J.A. Jance
ISBN: 9780062499059 (paperback)
ISBN: 9780062499042 (eBook)
ASIN: B019MMUAXS (Kindle version)
Publication Date: August 9, 2016
Publisher: Witness Impulse

From New York Times bestselling author J.A. Jance comes an all- new novella, in which Sheriff Joanna Brady and investigator Ali Reynolds join forces to solve a crime that has hit dangerously close to home. Sheriff Joanna Brady has a lot on her plate—she is up for re-election as sheriff, pregnant with her third child, and her eldest is packing up to leave for college. Then Joanna is woken in the middle of the night by a call reporting a motor vehicle accident. Her mother and stepfather’s RV ran off the road at high speed and hit the pillar of an overpass.

Something about the accident seems suspicious, though, and when Joanna gets a call from Ali Reynolds, a journalist turned investigator, she accepts her offer to help. They come up with a plan to find out who was responsible…even if that person is not the villain they’d expected.

Read an excerpt:

“Mom,” Jennifer Ann Brady said, “what if you lose?”

Sheriff Joanna Brady and her daughter, Jenny, were seated at a booth in the Triple T Truck Stop where they’d stopped for deep dish apple pie on their way home to Bisbee from a shopping expedition in Tucson. Jenny would be leaving for her first semester at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff in a matter of days. Because Tucson was a hundred miles one way from Bisbee, both of them had taken the day off work—Jenny from her job at a local veterinarian’s office and Joanna from work as well as pre-election campaigning.

Since there had been no panicky phone calls or texts from Tom Hadlock, her chief deputy, or from her campaign manager, either, it seemed likely that things on that end must be fairly well under control.

Somewhere between Wal-Mart—towels, bedding, pillows, sheets, a tiny microwave, and a one-cup coffeemaker—T.J. Maxx—clothing that would have caused Joanna’s mother, Eleanor, to have a conniption fit—and Western Wearhouse—boots, shirts, jeans, and a new hat—it had occurred to Joanna that kids needed lots of goods to head off to college these days. That was especially true for Jenny. After being awarded a full-ride athletic scholarship to join NAU’s recently reinstated rodeo team, she would also be going off to school with a pickup truck loaded with tack and a horse trailer hauling her relatively new quarter horse, Maggie.

Jenny had insisted that for this shopping trip it should be just the two of them—”like the old days,” she had said. The old days in question were the years between the death of Joanna’s first husband, Deputy Sheriff Andrew Roy Brady, and the arrival of her second husband, Butch Dixon. During that difficult interval after Andy’s murder and before Butch’s making his way into Joanna’s heart, Jenny had been the only star in her firmament. It had been just the two of them back then…well, three really—Jenny, Joanna, and a single dog. Now there was Butch; Jenny’s younger half brother, Dennis; and a menagerie of dogs, horses, and cattle, to say nothing of the growing baby bump at her expanding waistline, who was just then pummeling the inside of Jonna’s ribs with a series of field-goal worthy kicks.

All in all, it had been a lovely day, but Jenny’s question left a somber note lingering in the air over the Formica table in the bustling and noisy truck stop dining room.

“I’m not planning on losing,” Joanna said quietly.

Meet the author:

J. A. Jance is the New York Times bestselling author of the J. P. Beaumont series, the Joanna Brady series, the Ali Reynolds series, and five interrelated thrillers about the Walker Family as well as a volume of poetry. Born in South Dakota and brought up in Bisbee, Arizona, Jance lives with her husband in Seattle, Washington, and Tucson, Arizona.

Connect with the author:

Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads

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Downfall (Joanna Brady #17) by J.A. Jance
ISBN: 9780062297716 (hardcover)
ISBN: 9780062496645 (paperback – large print)
ISBN: 9780062297730 (eBook)
ISBN: 9780062561749 (audiobook CD)
ASIN: B017R4JVOC (Kindle version)
Publication Date: September 6, 2016
Publisher: William Morrow

Arizona sheriff Joanna Brady returns in this outstanding new mystery set in the beautiful desert country of the Southwest.

With a baby on the way, her mother and stepfather recently slain, a re-election campaign looming, and a daughter heading off for college, Cochise County Sheriff Joanna Brady has her hands full when a puzzling new case hits her department, demanding every resource she has at her disposal.

Two women have fallen to their deaths from a small nearby peak, referred to by Bisbee locals as Geronimo. What’s the connection between these two women? Is this a case of murder/suicide or is it a double homicide? And if someone else is responsible, is it possible that the perpetrator may, even now, be on the hunt for another victim?

Read an excerpt:

It came home to her then, in a visceral way, that faced with that kind of turn of events, she could do far worse than to follow in Eleanor’s footsteps—by soldiering on, by facing down the gossips, by doing what needed to be done, and by helping a pair of scared young people make the best decisions for their lives, their futures, and their baby’s future as well.

Joanna realized that she would have to stand very tall and stretch very high to live up to her mother’s example in terms of steadfastness and strength. When it came to kindness? Well, maybe not that so much. And perhaps, considering her own hurtful past with her mother, Joanna would be able to help Jenny while avoiding being as unwaveringly judgmental as Eleanor had always been. Maybe.

Sudden tears clouded Joanna’s eyes, eventually dripping off her chin and onto the keyboard. “Sorry, mom,” she murmured aloud. “I’m so sorry for everything.”

Once her tears abated, Joanna took a deep breath and returned to the keyboard:

My mother never really approved of my father’s entry into law enforcement—or mine, either, for that matter. I think her objections in both instances were founded on a very real fear of losing us.

My mom was left to raise me on her own, and it wasn’t easy. The other kids I knew all had two parents. I had only one. I was angry about that, and I’m afraid I took it out on her—blaming my mother for my father’s absence, because she was alive and my father was dead. That wasn’t fair of me. If I could take any of that back now, I would, but what I can tell you is this—when whenever the chips were really down, Eleanor Lathrop Winfield was always there for me and always in my corner—whether or not I appreciated it or even noticed it at the time.

George and Eleanor died together last week when a troubled youngster decided to try out his sniper skills by shooting at moving vehicles on I-17 south of Sedona. They died as result of injuries suffered in the incident. Subsequently the shooter died as well.

But standing here before you today, I can tell you straight out that having them go together, almost in an instant, was and is a blessing. It spared them both the longtime pain and grief that accompanied the losses of their first spouses.

Neither of them had to endure the long goodbye of a terminal cancer diagnosis or spend years alone after the loss of their beloved. At the time of the attack, George and my mother were together, doing exactly what they wanted, and traveling the country in that humongous RV of theirs. They were hurrying home to help host a barbecue planned as a send-off celebration for their granddaughter, Jenny, as she headed out for her freshman year of college.

Jenny is here today, and we’ve decided as a family that a barbecue is still the order of the day. It won’t be at all the same kind of send-off party any of us wanted, but we’re having it anyway. It’ll be later on this afternoon and evening out at High Lonesome Ranch. You’re all welcome to drop by, and I hope you will. Butch and Bob have assured me that there’ll be plenty of food to go around.

When Dennis, my son, heard we were having a party in honor of his Grandpa George and Grandma Eleanor, he wanted to know if there would be balloons. We told him, yes. We’re bringing lots of balloons, and you’re welcome to do the same.

I think both George and my mother would approve.

A ringing phone—her private landline—startled Joanna out of her fugue of concentration. Looking around she was surprised to see that the sun was down and the desert landscape outside her window had gone dark. The lights were off in the reception room which meant Kristin had left for the day without interrupting her.

“Do you know what time it is?” Butch demanded. “As of right now, you’re officially late for dinner. Again.”

“I’m sorry,” she said hurriedly. “I finally had a quiet moment to work on the eulogies, and I completely lost track of time.”

“Come home now,” Butch said. “Everybody else is already here, but they won’t mind waiting a few minutes longer.”

“I’m on my way,” she said, hurriedly saving the document, closing the laptop, and reaching for her briefcase. “I’ll be right there.”

Once the laptop was stowed and the briefcase closed, she grabbed her purse and shut out the lights before stepping outside. She turned and started toward her car. She never got that far. When the Taser darts hit her in the back of the shoulder, Joanna had a split second in which she recognized what they were. She along with all her officers had been hit with Taser darts as part of their training.

So she knew what it was as it happened, but that was all she knew. She had no remembrance of her purse and briefcase flying out of her hands and into the air; of falling flat on her back; or of cracking the back of her head on the sidewalk. That’s when everything went dark.

Meet the author: