Damage Control

I find myself looking for the characters and places as I travel Sheriff Brady's jurisdiction. It is impossible to read J.A.Jances books and not begin thinking of them as almost real. The problems and trials are those we all face or have faced- our good sheriff in book after book is very human in her resolutions of problems. This book like the others in the series is a superb example of a well written mystery book. I can recommend this book without reservation , you will enjoy every page.

This book is vintage J.A. Jance. She does a masterful job of interweaving the personal and professional lives of her heroine, Sheriff Joanna Brady, while giving her fans a great read. On the professional side, Joanna is faced with the apparent murder/suicide of an elderly couple, a man who dies in a mobile home fire, and the discovery of a decomposed body found in a trash bag. Personally, Joanna struggles to balance her personal life, which involves her husband Butch trying to promote his new book while tending to their young son and her teenaged daughter. During the course of this book, Joanna and Butch have to work out several compromises between the demands of their jobs and those of their growing family. Their struggles are very realistic in the light of today's two-career families, and the family issues are handled in a positive and practical fashion. This is one of the best books in a very good series.

I have been a huge J A Jance fan for years. Her first detective, J P Beaumont is still my favorite. However, early on in her literary career she also introduced Joanna Brady, Sheriff of Cochise County, AZ. I feared that this detective was history since, over the past few years, Ms. Jance introduced a new detective series with a new lead character, Ali Reynolds. That series is not up to this great author's usual quality and I feared she had lost the ability to create exceptional mystery novels. Happily, I was wrong. Damage Control is one of the best "chapters" in the Joanna Brady series. It is suspenseful and full of engaging characters, many of whom are familiar to readers of this series. I highly recommend this book to all readers of this genre. Ms. Jance has hit another homerun in her long and notable career.

Joanne Brady is the sheriff of Cochise County, Arizona, a mother and a wife, but daily she struggles to maintain a balance between her three major roles. One long weekend stretches the resources of her department to the limit. Alfred and Martha Beasley have a pleasant picnic near Huachuca Mountain; afterward they calmly speed on the mountain until the vehicle goes over the side. It was a double suicide as Alfred feared he had Alzheimer's and neither he nor his wife could live with that sentence. Then after a violent storm, two garbage bags tied together are found in the desert and inside are the skeletal remains of mentally impaired Wanda Mappin who lived in a group home run by Flannigan Foundation. Wanda complained to her mother before she died that her friend Wayne was missing. The Foundation listed her as missing soon after she disappeared, but the Foundation waited two months to report it. The Beasley's two adult daughters have not spoken to each other for decades. They come to town to deal with the deaths of their parents and the estate. They end up in jail for drunk and disorderly conduct. When they are released one of them has a psychotic break down and holds her sister hostage, but soon after the other too goes over the edge. A woman kills an intruder in her home thinking he is her boyfriend when it is a stranger linked to another case while an elderly person dies in a trailer fire while his daughter and children survive. Joanne has had a long weekend. This is just the tip of the iceberg as there are more crimes and deaths and plenty of people with information who fail to step forward. Although somewhat overwhelming in a novel with so much big and small happening, realism hits home as J.A. Jance juggles several subplots that reflect life as a county sheriff. DAMAGE CONTROL is impossible to put down whodunit as Joanne Brady believes she can do it all, but would not mind a short respite to recharge the batteries; but if none come so be it she will do all her roles well. Harriet Klausner