SHERIFF JOANNA BRADY FACES HER MOST PERSONAL AND DANGEROUS CASE WHEN HER DAUGHTER DISCOVERS A BODY IN THE ARIZONA WILDERNESS.

When Cochise County, Arizona, Sheriff Joanna Brady′s daughter Jenny goes off on a Memorial Day weekend girl scout camp-out in nearby Apache Pass, Joanna trusts that her 12-year-old daughter will behave. But with boy-crazy Dora Matthews as a tent-mate, Jenny is seduced into taking a late night unauthorized hike into the wilderness where--instead of smoking a clandestine cigarette--she and Dora stumble upon the body of a murdered Phoenix woman.

Knowing that her little girl will be traumatized by her experience, Joanna must balance concern for Jenny with the demands of her new marriage and possible bid for reelection. But when young Dora Matthews herself turns up dead two days later, Joanna′s concern turns to terror. For if Constance Haskell′s killer is murdering potential witnesses, Jenny may be next.

In Brownies I made one of the world's ugliest sit-upons--two squares of butt-sized red naugahyde sewn together with white yarn and then stuffed with cotton batting. What made mine ugly was the stitching. The stitching on the first side was carefully and evenly done.  The second side was less so, while the third and fourth sides were a disgrace. Naturally, I was picturing that ugly thing when I wrote the first camping scenes in this book.

When the book tour came along, I was in the process of doing a Sunday afternoon book signing at the Joseph Beth store in Louisville, Kentucky when my phone rang.  I carry my cell phone in my bra.  When the phone rang, people in the audience looked at one another as if to say, "Whose phone is that?" But I knew it was mine. In my bra. Finally I pulled it out, but when I looked at the read-out, I could see that the caller was none other than my mother. As long as my mother was on the planet, I tried to call her every Sunday without fail.

"I'm sorry," I said to the people in the audience.  "It's my mother.  She's in her eighties.  I have to take this."

"Hello," I said.

"Where are you?" my mother asked.

"I'm in Louisville, Kentucky, doing a book signing."

"Well," she said, "aren't you glad that all those years ago I saved your sit-upon so that now you have something to write about."

JAJ