Settings & Atmosphere - Fiction, Women Detectives - Fiction, Police Stories

Rattlesnake Crossing

Name: Rattlesnake Crossing
Author: J. A. Jance
ISBN: 9780061998966

by J. A. Jance

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Overview

The hardworking single mother of a young daughter, Joanna Brady still feels the acute pain of loneliness and loss, and the hole that was left in her heart when her policeman husband was brutally murdered. But Sheriff Brady is the law in Cochise County, and she will never allow her private trials to interfere with the job she was elected to perform - especially now that murder has shattered the small town's fragile peace. A local gun dealer has died violently, and his stock of high-powered weapons has been cleaned out. When two more slayings follow soon after, suspicion falls upon rancher Alton Hosfield, an embittered man at war with the federal government, environmentalists, area newcomers, the local law - with anyone, in fact, whom he perceives as a threat to his home, his family, his freedom, and his isolation. Sheriff Brady suspects, however, that the solution is not so cut-and-dried.

About the Author, J. A. Jance

J. A. Jance is the New York Times bestselling author of the J. P. Beaumont series, the Joanna Brady series, the Ali Reynolds series, and four interrelated thrillers about the Walker family. Born in South Dakota and brought up in Bisbee, Arizona, Jance lives with her husband in Seattle, Washington, and Tucson, Arizona.

Biography

Considering J. A. Jance's now impressive career -- which includes two massively popular mystery series and status as a New York Times bestseller -- it may be difficult to believe that she was initially strongly discouraged from literary pursuits. A chauvinistic creative writing professor advised her to seek out a more "ladylike" job, such as nurse or schoolteacher. Moreover, her alcoholic husband (a failed Faulkner wannabe) assured her there was room in the family for only one writer, and he was it. Determined to make her doomed marriage work, Jance put her writing on the back burner. But while her husband slept, she penned the visceral poems that would eventually be collected in After the Fire.

Jance next chose to use her hard times in a more unlikely manner. Encouraged by an editor to try writing fiction after a failed attempt at a true-crime book, she created J. P. Beaumont, a homicide detective with a taste for booze. Beaumont's drinking problem was clearly linked to Jance's dreadful experiences with her first husband; but, as she explains it: "Beaumont was smart enough to sober up, once the problem was brought to his attention. My husband, on the other hand, died of chronic alcoholism at age 42." So, from misfortune grew one of the most popular characters in modern mystery fiction. Beaumont debuted in 1985's Until Proven Guilty -- and, after years of postponing her writing career, Jance was on her way.

As a sort of light flipside to the dark Beaumont, Jance created her second series in 1991. Inspired by the writer's happier role as a mom, plucky small-town sheriff Joanna Brady was introduced in Desert Heat and struck an immediate chord with readers. In 2005, Jance added a third story sequence to her repertoire with Edge of Evil, featuring Ali Reynolds, a former TV reporter-turned-professional blogger.

And so, the adventures continue! A career such as Jance's would be extraordinary under any circumstances, but considering the obstacles she overcame to become a bestselling, critically acclaimed novelist, her tale is all the more compelling. As she explains it: "One of the wonderful things about being a writer is that everything -- even the bad stuff -- is usable."

Good To Know

Geographically speaking, Jance is equal parts J. P. Beaumont and Joanna Brady. She splits her time between Beaumont's big-city home of Seattle and Brady's desert residence of Arizona.

Before her writing career become truly lucrative, Jance made little more than "fun money" off her books, and on her web site, she wryly recalls "the Improbable Cause trip to Walt Disney World; the Minor in Possession memorial powder room; the Payment in Kind memorial hot tub."

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Editorials

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

"Yes, indeed, folks is droppin' like flies," a crotchety witness says to Sheriff Joanna Brady. "I don't remember us havin' this kind of murder problem back when we had a man for sheriff." A killer is loose in Cochise County, Ariz., and Brady is under pressure to stop the carnage. Her sixth adventure (following Skeleton Canyon, 1997) begins with the discovery of a gun dealer's body. His stock of high-powered weapons has disappeared, and some of the later murder victims appear to have been shot with big guns. They are also scalped, throwing suspicion on visitors at a quasi-dude ranch for Apache wannabes from Europe, who dress in Indian garb and live outdoors. Then an FBI profiler tells Brady that the scalping may provide trophies for a possible serial killer. On the personal front, the widowed sheriff finds her relationship deepening with Phoenix bar owner Butch Dixon, and she suffers with her dear friend, minister Marianne Maculyea, whose faith is tested when her adopted daughter falls gravely ill. Although Joanna's private life is central to this series and is, as usual, movingly portrayed, the sheer number of bodies piling up in this case gives her professional efforts considerably more dramatic impact than her personal considerations. Author tour. (July)

Library Journal

The sixth Joanna Brady novel begins with a red herring and ends with a serial killer. Despite the gory details and the piling up of corpses, the mystery retains its human proportions, as Sheriff Brady contends with staff, friends, her love life, and her daughter. A satisfying entry.

Kirkus Reviews

The longer Joanna Brady's cases get, the less there seems to be to them. This time, the killer whose first homicide was just a warm-up for a spree that runs from Pomerene gun dealer Clyde Philips (beaten and smothered) to anti-oleander activist Ashley Brittany (shot and scalped) to dude ranch paper-shuffler Katrina Berridge (ditto and ditto) sounds like a meaty meal for the sheriff of Arizona's Cochise County. But the hints of survivalist hysteria go nowhere; the rumors of a small-scale range war between rancher Alton Hosfield and transplanted insurance exec Martin Scorsby go nowhere; even the war signals between Joanna and substitute medical examiner Dr. Fran Daly go nowhere. There are more killings, but Jance (Skeleton Canyon, 1997, etc.) seems less interested in them, certainly less interested in the killer behind them, than in Joanna's romance with restauranteur Butch Dixon or her friend Rev. Marianne Maculyea's medical tribulations with her adopted daughter. The result is less a police procedural, still less a mystery or suspenser than a novel of manners about a heroine whose career happens to be in law enforcement, and whose idea of bonding with the bereaved is to tell them that since she's a widow herself, she knows how they feel. All of which would be fine if Joanna and her intimates were interesting enough to make up for what's missing. As it is, Jance makes you appreciate how hard the best Faye Kellermans work to integrate her characters' domestic and professional lives, instead of simply serving them up on the same plate.