LEAVE HIM BE, MAN. LET THE COPS TAKE CARE OF THE STUPID JERK

Joanna Brady –devoted mother and the first female Sheriff of Cochise County, Arizona–knows what it’s like to lose one you love, and her heart still aches over the murder of her policeman husband. But her sympathy for a tragically widowed ex-cop has placed Joanna’s future in jeopardy–and brought her face-to-face with death in the high, lonely desert.

On their nineteenth wedding anniversary, Hal Morgan’s wife was fatally struck down by a drunk driver–and the courts punished her killer with only a wrist-slap. A year to the day later the irresponsible motorist is murdered and all fingers are pointing to Morgan as the perpetrator–except Sheriff Brady’s. But Joanna’s gut instinct is leading her into a maelstrom of danger and deception, as she trails the truth from a ghostly mining camp to the rocky spires of the Chiricahua National Monument. Because now an assassin is turning his sights on her.

One of our friends, Carol Norman, died as a result of a drunk driving incident. After two years and with the help of Mothers Against Drunk Drivers, Carol’s husband finally saw to it that his wife's killer went to prison for–sixteen months. The prosecutor was proud of the sentence; I was offended, and I just happened to be getting ready to write a book.

The scene in the Prologue of Dead to Rights and the events surrounding the death of a fictional Bonnie Jean Morgan aren’t exactly what happened to Jim and Carol Norman, but they are close enough that when I was on tour with this book I was unable to read the Prologue aloud at book signings because it choked me up. I couldn’t get the words to come out past the lump in my throat.

Bearing that in mind, it’s hardly surprising that the drunken character behind the wheel of the speeding car in my book doesn’t make it to the end of the first chapter. Rubbing him out felt good to me. Maybe the pen really is mightier than the sword.

JAJ