WHEN DRUG DEALERS MURDERED HER LAWMAN HUSBAND, JOANNA BRADY VOWED SHE WOULD CARRY ON HIS GOOD WORK– NO MATTER WHAT THE COST

With grit, courage and dogged determination, Joanna challenged the status quo–and won. 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. For the two bodies baking in the harsh Southwestern sun are connected by sinister threads that reach back generations–and by devastating family secrets of greed, hatred and shocking abuse that could destroy the innocent along with the guilty.

When I wrote the first Beaumont book, I had no idea I was writing a series. With Joanna Brady, I knew it was a series from the beginning. In the early Eighties I was involved in a political campaign that resulted in a heart-breaking loss. That experience taught me that, in a democracy, no matter how large or small the position, running for office is an exhausting, all-consuming process. As I prepared to write Tombstone Courage, I expected the race for sheriff would take a central role, but I was due for a rude awakening.

My eleven previous books were all “police procedurals,” a literary genre and term I learned four books into the game. I had come to have a profound respect for police officers, both who they are and what they do. As a result, I found myself ill equipped to write a book with an “amateur sleuth” as the main character. Whenever Joanna started asking questions or nosing around, I would find myself telling her, “You can’t do that.”

After struggling for weeks with a terrible case of writer’s block, I finally realized that I had to skip the election and turn Joanna Brady into a sheriff from the get-go. After that, the book came together.

JAJ