Desert Heat

Origin stories, of which this is one, are always tricky to write: It's easy to spend so much time introducing the main character and their world that the story itself gets shunted to the sidelines. That's the case--and then some--in Desert Heat, which spends so long showing us how Joanna Brady went from 20-something wife, mother, and white-collar employee to (incipient) sheriff of Cochise County, Arizona, that it never gets around to making us care about that transition. The mystery is sketchy at best, it's solved less through detection than revelation, and the last loose ends are tied up in an out-of-left-field coincidence that would have made Dickens blush.

None of this would matter if Joanna was a bold, vivid character--as Kinsey show more Milhone or V. I. Warshawski were in their first outings, or Vic Moretti was in the first Walt Longmire novel--but she's as flat and generic here as the heroine of a TV movie. The supporting characters are competently drawn stock characters, but no more than that. If all of them, from Joanna's perfect 9-year-old daughter to her crusty-but-lovable neighbor, vanished before the next book, I wouldn't miss any of them for a moment.

Does the series get better? Probably. But the mystery-fiction world is full of series that I haven't read yet, either, and are better (far better) from the get-go. show less

Desert Heat is the first book in the Joanna Brady series. It begins with Joanna waiting impatiently for her husband who has promised to be home on time to take her out for their tenth anniversary. The Cochise County Deputy, who is also running for Sheriff, had special plans but he’s hours late. Becoming worried, Joanna heads out in her car looking for him after finding out he’d left the station hours ago. She finds him shot and is barely alive just off the road. Almost before he is transported to the hospital, rumors begin to circulate that Andy is a good cop turned bad and that he tried to commit suicide rather than to risk having his illegal dealings with drug smugglers exposed. Of course, Joanna doesn't believe any of the rumors show more and sets out on a mission to discover the true story and to find Andy's attacker.

There are plenty of surprises in this book and even though we know from the beginning who the murderer is, the motive for the murder remains a mystery until the end of the book. Joanna is a very likable character. She’s vulnerable but both tough and determined. She's an engaging character but the secondary characters need some filling out. This is quite usual in the “first” book of a series so I'm not going to let that deter me from reading the next one. I lived in Tucson for almost forty years and traveled to Bisbee several times. It's obvious Jance has lived in the area and her inclusion of local landmarks made this a very enjoyable read for me. Desert Heat is a quick and enjoyable read for those who enjoy a good mystery set in the desert southwest. show less

Joanna Brady is Judy Jance’s Arizona detective, forced into that role in this first book of the series when her husband, a Cochise County sheriff’s deputy, is murdered and his death made to look like a suicide. Worse, there is evidence that Andy Brady was also involved in drug smuggling.
Jance was not new to mystery writing when she published Desert Heat in 1993; she already had ten books in a series about a Seattle detective named J. P. Beaumont. But the setting of this book returns to the area where she grew up, in southeastern Arizona, in the copper-mining town of Bisbee and the surrounding Cochise County. Part of the book is set in Tucson as well, and since I grew up in southern Arizona, I keep trying to read mysteries set show more there, just because it’s pleasant to come across familiar places when I’m allowing my imagination to inhabit the scene of a book. Unfortunately, not every Southwestern author writes like Tony Hillerman, and I have put down quite a few of these local mysteries after ten or twenty pages of mediocre writing. Jance is a good writer, though, and a good deal of the interest I found in this book is in the way she has constructed it. The book has a structure I would call comic. I don’t mean that it’s funny, but rather that it has a plot arrangement that shows up in Shakespearean as well as classical Greek and Roman comedy. Before the reputation of the good guy even begins to be threatened by the bad things he seems to have done, we have already been shown that someone other than the villain knows the truth and can eventually reveal it. This is reassuring for the audience or the reader. So it may be a test for Joanna Brady to continue to believe in her husband with each new revelation that seems to incriminate him, but we readers never doubt him and know the truth will out. In Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, for instance, we know that the accusation against the beautiful young heroine will come to nothing because the police have already captured the drunken bunglers who helped to manufacture the evidence against her.
In Desert Heat, Jance concentrates on two characters, Joanna Brady and the woman who has unwittingly become mixed up with Andy Brady’s killer. In different ways, each finds more strength of character than she thought herself capable of. And if you want to know how the series will continue, let me give you this hint: Joanna Brady’s father was sheriff of Cochise County, and her husband Andy was running for sheriff when he was killed. As one of the characters says, “sometimes the best man for the job is a woman.” show less

Andrew Brady is a deputy in Cochise County, Arizona, where he lives with his wife, Joanna, and their young daughter. Both parents work hard at their jobs as well as on their small ranch. He is running for sheriff, and life is good, until it isn’t. It’s their tenth anniversary, and Andy is late coming home. Looking for Andy on his normal route, Joanna finds him critically wounded next to his vehicle, and radios for help. Later, after Andy’s surgery and with him in ICU, she is told that Andy’s injuries are consistent with a suicide attempt, and police officials say they believe that Andy is a dirty cop involved with drug trafficking. Joanna is nearly alone in her belief that Andy is a victim of attempted murder and set up to take show more the fall as a dirty cop. And she is determined to find the assassin and clear her husband’s name. This first book in the series is gripping thriller. Joanna is a strong character ready to do whatever it takes to clear her husband’s name of any wrongdoing. The story is complex and well structured. The characters are interesting and their personalities are intriguing, especially Joanna’s, as she fights for justice for her husband. It’s a great beginning for this series. show less

Desert Heat is the first book in the Joanna Brady series. It begins with Joanna waiting impatiently for her husband who has promised to be home on time to take her out for their tenth anniversary. The Cochise County Deputy, who is also running for Sheriff, had special plans but he’s hours late. Becoming worried, Joanna heads out in her car looking for him after finding out he’d left the station hours ago. She finds him shot and is barely alive just off the road. Almost before he is transported to the hospital, rumors begin to circulate that Andy is a good cop turned bad and that he tried to commit suicide rather than to risk having his illegal dealings with drug smugglers exposed. Of course, Joanna doesn't believe any of the rumors show more and sets out on a mission to discover the true story and to find Andy's attacker.

There are plenty of surprises in this book and even though we know from the beginning who the murderer is, the motive for the murder remains a mystery until the end of the book. Joanna is a very likable character. She’s vulnerable but both tough and determined. She's an engaging character but the secondary characters need some filling out. This is quite usual in the “first” book of a series so I'm not going to let that deter me from reading the next one. I lived in Tucson for almost forty years and traveled to Bisbee several times. It's obvious Jance has lived in the area and her inclusion of local landmarks made this a very enjoyable read for me. Desert Heat is a quick and enjoyable read for those who enjoy a good mystery set in the desert southwest. show less

Joanna Brady's husband is dead and the facts of the case are making him into a man she never knew. She is out to find the truth, wherever that leads.
Having read Tombstone Courage first, I really wasn't looking forward to reading this. I thought it would be redundant and too sad. However, I'm glad I did read it. It gives me good insight into the way Jance develops her characters and I'm looking forward to that in the rest of the series. It was sad. The places I cried at were the scenes with Andy's father and the old neighbor rancher. I'm a sap for good men well written. The author has a way of showing the grief experienced by her characters in a realistic way.It isn't really a hidden mystery, yet it is still fun to watch how it is show more revealed in the story. I like Joanna Brady. She is a no-nonsense woman but has just enough flaws to make her believable. show less

Desert Heat is the first book in the Joanna Brady series and I learned about J.A. Jance from Anne Hillerman. This first book has lots of drama and interactions. It's set in Southern Arizona. The first quarter of the book was not very exciting and moved slowly, but I blundered on. Later, the book moved faster and at one point, I found myself saying: "Don't dooo iiiiittt!" The read was good enough that I want to read book #2.