Joanna Brady...My Hero!

Seriously! This lady, imagined in the fertile mind of author J.A. Jance, has been through hell..literally.

SPOILER ALERT!!

First, Joanna's husband (a deputy sheriff in Cochise County, Arizona) is shot (gutshot no less) and is later finished off in the hospital by the same drug cartel assassin. Joanna tracks down the killer and his contacts within the sheriffs department and kills him after a shootout in which the current county sheriff is also killed. END OF BOOK ONE.

Joanna, at the urging of family and friends, runs for county sheriff and wins. This occurs a mere month or so after her husband was murdered. As she is settling into her new job, she stumbles across another double homicide, and ultimately ends up witnessing (causing?) the death of two more people. END OF BOOK TWO.

A month or so later, trying to get some much needed experience and training, Joanna sets off for Phoenix to go to police school. While doing so she runs afoul of a serial killer who just happens to have a connection with the training facility in which the school is held. Again, she witnesses (causes?) the death of the killer, is involved in the death of her head instructor, and the near-death of a new friend, as well as nearly losing her daughter to the serial killer. END OF BOOK THREE.

Don't get me wrong... I love these stories. Joanna is a great character, the setting is great, and the cast is varied, interesting and often humorous. I look forward to the rest of the series and will also try Jance's other series featuring a much better known sleuth, P.D. Beaumont.

But.... I gotta say, I think Joanna needs a vacation, and some therapy. I mean, after all, her husband was murdered, she has personally killed at least two men, has witnessed the gruesome death of at least 4 other people, and has nearly lost her own daughter to a psychopathic serial killer. All within about a two month span. On the plus side, she's made lots of new friends, discovered a long lost brother, and apparently found the ability within herself to shrug off horrific experiences that would leave most of us sitting in a quiet room staring off into space.