Paradise Lost

In this installment, Jenny is the one who stumbles across a dead body while sneaking out after bedtime on a Girl Scout campout. She is in trouble with her mom for breaking the rules, but praised for doing the right thing by reporting the body to her scout leader. Her partner on the camp out, Dora, is also sent home with Jenny, and when she is killed days later, Sheriff Joanna Brady fears for her own daughter’s safety. The sheriff’s department is understaffed but there is no shortage of dead bodies in this mystery. Working overtime, Joanna and her detectives try to find the common thread in these murders, but sometimes one just doesn’t exist. This is another entertaining thriller. It’s not just the mysteries that keeps readers show more devouring this series. It’s the interaction between the very real and intriguing characters and their interesting lives that keeps readers coming back for more. show less

Sheriff Joanna Brady is another of my favorite crime solvers, but in Paradise Lost she's a prime example of why I would never attempt to write about a crime solver who is married and has a child. In this novel Brady is newly married to Butch Dixon, her second husband, and her daughter Jenny is now 12 years old. Both are struggling a bit with issues that are the result of being married to or the daughter of a county sheriff.

This story begins with Joanna and Butch attending an Arizona Sheriff's Association convention. She is sneaking back into their room at the hotel at 1 am after playing poker with other sheriffs and beating her least favorite one out of about $700. Butch understands but later admits the convention was difficult for him show more as the only husband of a sheriff. Wives of course have gone through this since the Stone Age but it's different for a guy.

Then Jenny has problems camping with the Girl Scouts and trying to be just one of the kids. Then she and her pup tent mate find a body and the plot is off and running and so is Joanna. It's one of those novels that leaves you breathless because it goes so fast, there's so much danger, and Joanna is also dealing with family issues.

By the way, Joanna's mother, Eleanor, is the most aggravating character ever devised by a novelist. I'd say more but you just have to meet her yourself.

Actually that's the best feature of Jance's novels - the characters. They're unique and they're understandable in their lives and their actions, if a little quirky at times but aren't we all? The characters are really busy in this tale with a short-handed sheriff's department, three murders, and a lot of miles to cover during the investigation. Meanwhile, Butch is in the wedding of one of his former employees, Jenny is upset, Eleanor is very upset, and Joanna needs to be in about three places at once. What a crazy mess, but of course it all tends to work out.

I can't tell you any more without spoiling the book for you, except that a recurring theme is motherhood. I hope you'll read this one. It's a keeper. show less

Well gee. I think I liked the first Sheriff Brady novel I read well enough, but this one I didn’t like that much. Joanna flat out got on my nerves. She is overly emotional about almost everything. She’s quick to anger, frustration, tears and jealousy. And each display is more gaudy than the last. She marries the bartender from the only other book I read and when she thinks he spent the night with an old girlfriend, she flips out and takes off to cry uncontrollably in a parking lot. She calls a friend and the friend has to talk her off the ledge. You mean I should actually talk to him and let him explain instead of heading right for the divorce lawyer??? What a dope. And every time someone mentioned her kid, her first reaction was a show more panicked ‘what? Is she OK?’ Please lady, you’re a cop, try to act like one.

Good mystery in a way, but not compelling. I couldn’t really care about any of the victims. show less

While Joanna and Butch are at the annual Sheriff’s convention, Jenny has to go on a Girl Scout Camping trip she’d prefer to skip. It doesn’t help that, through the un-luck of the draw, she’s the tent-mate of a girl that smells, is abrasive and no one likes. But at lights out Dora wants to sneak a cigarette, getting Jenny to try one. So begins a disturbing set of events as the girls take a hike they know they shouldn’t and come across a dead woman whose murder is brutal enough to disturb even the medical examiner.

Lots of things are going on in the homefront too and there is plenty of anger and emotion to go around for a number of reasons. All of it is a learning experience for Joanna who must also decide if she wants to run for show more re-election and how it would affect her family.

Every once in a while it’s easy to guess the whodunit fairly early in the story, even as threads take you in different directions before revealing a much larger story. That’s not the case in this tale as the overworked/understaffed Sheriff’s department work three homicides. Joanna’s handling of capturing one of the murderers has her staff impressed with not only how she pulls off the last minute coordination from different departments, but her compassion in dealing with the perp’s needs; something you wouldn’t expect to see from others in her position.

More than an administrator, Joanna involves herself in every homicide, and since they’ve only got two detectives, she and her Chief Deputy are also taking on more of her detectives’ duties when investigations begin piling up. She’s in an interesting position as she’s learned about being a cop and a detective through being involved, and yet she’s able to see things from a different, sometimes larger perspective as she’s looking at both the forest and the trees. show less

I was disappointed in the depiction of a married woman (actually more than one) who behaves like a child. Monogamy at its worst! I also noticed - suddenly, about 7 books into our story arc, that this author doesn't describe people. Great descriptions of the desert, but I suddenly realized that I was sure what Butch looked like. The plotting was fine.

While Sheriff Joanna Brady is at a conference of Arizona Sheriffs in Page Arizona bad things are happening in Chochise County on the other end of the state. Joanna's daughter Jenny and another girl are getting in trouble for smoking on a girl scout campout. Several people disappear and are found dead. Just the usual stuff in lightly populated Chochise County Arizona. I enjoy these novels by J.A. Jance. Maybe because I like the place names in that part of Arizona. It's been years since I have been there but I can still picture the Dragoon Mountains and Cochise's Stronghold in my mind. Some suprises among the murder and mayhem so I won't reveal a thing.

i didn't like this one. too much personal stuff. 2 not very interesting stories very tenuously linked. i agree with the other reviewer about joanna getting on my nerves. and her husband's name is BUTCH?