Now, as newly elected Sheriff of Cochise County, Arizona, she must battle the prejudice and hostility of a mistrustful, male-dominated police force–and solve a grisly double homicide that threatens to tear the sleepy desert community to pieces.

With grit, courage and dogged determination, Joanna challenged the status quo–and won. WHEN DRUG DEALERS MURDERED HER LAWMAN HUSBAND, JOANNA BRADY VOWED SHE WOULD CARRY ON HIS GOOD WORK– NO MATTER WHAT THE COST From selling insurance to being a Girl Scout to liking Malt-o-Meal, Joanna Brady’s experience is certainly a reflection of mine.

Is Joanna Brady autobiographical? In some ways, yes. In addition I know how small towns work–the small unasked kindnesses and the entrenched gossiping that result from everyone knowing everybody else’s business. I have half a century’s experience at being the daughter of a strong-willed mother and almost thirty years’ experience at playing the strong-willed mother with a headstrong daughter. I was divorced for a year and a half before my former husband died, so I know what it’s like to be left alone with a child to raise. My father spent twenty years selling life insurance. I spent my childhood there, taking Sunday afternoon rides with my family and scrambling barefoot over the mesquite and bear-grass studded hills, making forts in stands of Embry’s scrub oak, and tearing down hilly streets in a kid crammed Radio Flyer.

I wasn’t allowed in the creative writing classes at the University of Arizona, but I was smart enough to figure out that I needed to write what I know. Because, in the desert, the truth can be far more lethal than a rattler’s bite. But her determined efforts to track down an assassin and clear her husband’s name are placing herself and Jenny in serious jeopardy. Joanna knows a cover-up when she hears one. The police brass claim that Andy was dirty–up to his neck in drugs and smuggling–and that the shooting was a suicide attempt. But her good life explodes when a bullet destroys Andy Brady’s future and leaves him dying beneath the blistering Arizona sun. She has Jenny, her adored nine-year-old daughter, and solid, honest, and loving husband, Andy, a local lawman who’s running for Sheriff of Cochise County. Life is good for Joanna Brady in the small desert community of Bisbee.

Dead to rights ja jance