Works by
J.A. Jance
(Writer)
[1944 - ]

Fiction

Ali Reynolds Books

1. Edge of Evil (2006)
   The end of her high-profile broadcasting career came too soon for TV journalist Alison Reynolds—bounced off the air by executives who wanted a "younger face." With a divorce from her cheating husband of ten years also pending, there is nothing keeping her in L.A. any longer. Cut loose from her moorings, Ali is summoned back home to Sedona, Arizona, by the death of a childhood friend. Once there she seeks solace in the comforting rhythms of her parents' diner, the Sugarloaf Café, and launches an on-line blog as therapy for others who have been similarly cut loose.
   
   But when threatening posts begin appearing, Ali finds out that running a blog is far more up-close and personal than sitting behind a news desk. And far more dangerous. Suddenly something dark and deadly is swirling around her life . . . and a killer may be hunting her next.

2. Web of Evil (2007)
   The highway from Los Angeles to the Palm Springs desert is parched, unforgiving, and deadly. In the suffocating stillness of a car trunk, a man -- his mouth and hands bound with tape -- waits to learn his fate. Fortunately for him, he'll never know. What possible enemy could be bitter enough to commit such a heinous crime? And when will the monster make another move?
   
   Ali Reynolds is traveling that same blistering, lonesome highway, looking forward to putting her past behind her. She'd left Los Angeles for the home comforts of Sedona, Arizona, and the satisfaction of a blog, cutlooseblog.com. But her cheating husband is in a hurry for a divorce; his very young and very pregnant fiancée has a wedding planned for the next day. And the television network that wrongfully dismissed Ali for the sole sin of being over forty will face her in court as well. So Ali must return to the scene of those crimes. As she passes the site of a horrifying accident, she thanks goodness it's no longer her job to report the news. Until she finds out the news is her own.... For the victim is Ali's cheating husband, and soon she'll find herself the prime suspect at the center of a terrifying web of evil.
   
   Web of Evil gives us J. A. Jance at her most masterful in a twisted and lethal drama of heart-pounding suspense that asks the question: If hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, just what punishment could that fury unleash?

J. P. Beaumont Series

1. Until Proven Guilty (1985)
   The little girl was only five, much too young to die -- a lost treasure who should have been cherished, not murdered.She could have been J.P. Beaumont's kid, and the determined Seattle homicide detective won't rest until her killer pays dearly. But the hunt is leading Beaumont into a murky world of religious fanaticism, and toward a beautiful, perilous obsession all his own. And suddenly Beau himself is a target -- because faith can be dangerous...and love can kill.

2. Injustice for All (1986)
   It was like a scene from a movie: the beautiful blond screaming on a Washington beach, a dead man lying at her feet; the dashing Homicide detective arriving to offer kindness and solace to the distressed lady. What it wasn't was a restful vacation for J.P. Beaumont. And now a murderous mix of politics and passion is turning Beau's holiday into a nightmare - and leading the dedicated Seattle cop into the path of a killer whose bloodlust is rapidly becoming an obsession.

3. Trial by Fury (1986)
   The dead body discovered in a Seattle dumpster was shocking enough - but equally disturbing was the manner of death. The victim, a high school coach, had been lynched, leaving behind a very pregnant wife to grieve over his passing, and to wonder what dark and disturbing secrets he took to his grave. A homicide detective with twenty years on the job, J.P. Beaumont knows this case is a powder keg and he fears where this investigation will lead him. Because the answers lie on the extreme lethal edge of passion and hate, where the wrong kind of love can breed the most terrible brand of justice.

• Sentenced to Die (2005)
  Until Proven Guilty, Injustice for All, Trial by Fury

4. Taking the Fifth (1987)
   There are many bizarre and terrible ways to die. Seattle Homicide Detective J.P. Beaumont thought he had seen them all - until he saw this body, its wounds, and the murder weapon: an elegant woman’s shoe, its stiletto heel gruesomely caked with blood. The evidence is shocking and unsettling, even for a man who prowls the shadows for a living, for it suggests that savagery is not the exclusive domain of the predatory male. And the scent of a stylish killer is pulling Beaumont into a world of drugs, corruption, and murder to view close-up a cinematic dream at its most nightmarish…and lethal.

5. Improbable Cause (1987
   Perhaps it was fitting justice: a dentist who enjoyed inflicting pain was murdered in his own chair. The question is not who wanted Dr. Frederick Nielsen dead, but rather who of the many finally reached the breaking point. The sordid details of this case, with its shocking revelations of violence, cruelty, and horrific sexual abuse, would be tough for any investigator to stomach. But for Seattle Homicide Detective J.P. Beaumont, the most damning piece of the murderous puzzle will shake him to his very core -- because what will be revealed to him is nothing less than the true meaning of unrepentant evil.

6. A More Perfect Union (1988)
   A shocking photo screamed from the front pages of the tabloids—the last moments of a life captured for all the world to see. The look of sheer terror eternally frozen on the face of the doomed woman indicated that her fatal fall from an upper story of an unfinished Seattle skyscraper was no desperate suicide—and that look will forever haunt Homicide Detective J.P. Beaumont. But his hunt for answers and justice is leading to more death, and to dark and terrible secrets scrupulously guarded by men of steel behind the locked doors of a powerful union that extracts its dues payments in blood.

7. Dismissed With Prejudice (1989)
   Japanese businessman Tadeo Kurobashi had many passions, including computers, poetry, money, and Samurai lore. So his suicide method of choice would naturally be the ancient art of seppuku - what the uninitiated call “hara-kiri.” But despite the bloody Samurai sword Kurobashi clutches tightly in his lifeless hand, Seattle detective J.P. Beaumont senses the dead software magnate played a less active role in his own demise. Because glaring errors have been made in the time-honoured Asian death ritual - which has Beau looking for someone with a less traditional passion…for cold-blooded homicide.

8. Minor in Possession (1990)
   All manner of sinners and sufferers come to the rehab ranch in Arizona when they hit rock bottom. For Seattle detective J.P. Beaumont, there is a deeper level of Hell here: being forced to room with teenage drug dealer Joey Rothman. An all-around punk, Joey deserves neither pity nor tears—until he is murdered by a bullet fired from Beaumont's gun. Someone has set Beau up brilliantly for a long and terrifying fall, dragging the alcoholic ex-cop into a conspiracy of blood and lies that could cost him his freedom . . . and his life.

9. Payment in Kind (1991)
   It looks like a classic crime of passion to Detective J.P Beaumont: two corpses found lovingly entwined in a broom closet of the Seattle School District building. The prime suspect, Pete Kelsey, admits his slain spouse was no novice at adultery, yet he swears he had nothing to do with the brutal deaths of the errant school official and her clergyman-turned-security guard companion. Beau believes him, but there's something the much sinned-upon widower's not telling -- and that spells serious trouble still to come.
   
   Because the secret Pete's protecting is even hotter than extra-marital sex. . . and it could prove more lethal than murder.

10. Without Due Process (1993)
    What kind of monster would break into a man's home at night, then slaughter him and his family? The fact that the dead man was a model cop who was loved and respected by all only intensifies the horror. But the killer missed someone: a five-year-old boy who was hiding in the closet. Now word is being leaked out that the victim was "dirty." But Seattle P.D. Homicide Detective J.P. Beaumont isn't about to let anyone drag a murdered friend's reputation through the muck. And he'll put his own life on the firing line on the gang-ruled streets to save a terrified child who knows too much to live.

11. Failure to Appear (1994)
    A desperate father's search for his runaway daughter has led him to the last place he ever expected to find her: backstage at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. But the murders in this dazzling world of make-believe are no longer mere stagecraft, and the blood is all too real. The hunt for his child has plunged former Seattle Homicide Detective J.P. Beaumont into a bone-chilling drama of revenge, greed, and butchery, where innocents are made to suffer in perverse and terrible ways. And many more young lives are at stake, unless he can uncover the villain of the piece before the final, deadly curtain falls.

12. Lying in Wait (1995)
    A Seattle fisherman has died badly—bound, tortured and set ablaze aboard his boat on the Puget Sound. And with his death comes disturbing questions . . . and the key to a Pandora's Box of evil that has remained tightly closed for over half a century.
    
    Else Didriksen is no longer the beautiful, troubled teenager who disappeared from detective J.P. Beaumont's life thirty years earlier. Now she is a homicide victim's widow-frightened, desperate and trapped in a web of murderous greed that reaches out from a time of unrelenting terror. And the dark, deadly secrets that hold Else prisoner threaten to ensnare Beau and new partner Sue Danielson as well-and to rock their world in ways they never dreamed possible.

13. Name Withheld (1997)
    There are those who don't deserve to live -- and the corpse floating in Elliot Bay may have been one of those people. Not surprisingly, many individuals -- too many, in fact -- are eager to take responsibility for the brutal slaying of the hated biotech executive whose alleged crimes ranged from the illegal trading of industrial secrets to rape. For Seattle Detective J.P. Beaumont -- who's drowning in his own life-shattering problems -- a case of seemingly justifiable homicide has sinister undertones, drawing the haunted policeman into a corporate nightmare of double deals, savage jealousies, and real blood spilled far too easily, as it leads him closer to a killer he's not sure he wants to find.

14. Breach of Duty (2000)
    The Seattle that Beau knew as a young policeman is disappearing. The city is awash in the aromas emanating from a glut of coffee bars, the neighborhood outside his condo building has sprouted gallery upon gallery, and even his long cherished diner has evolved into a trendy eatery for local hipsters. But the glam is strictly surface, for the grit under the city's fingernails is caked with blood. Beau and his new partner Sue Danielson, a struggling single parent, are assigned the murder of an elderly woman torched to death in her bed. As their investigation proceeds, Beau and Sue become embroiled in a perilous series of events that will leave them and their case shattered -- and for Beau nothing will ever be the same again.

15. Birds of Prey (2002)
    The Statfire Breeze steams its way north toward the Gulf of Alaska, buffeted by crisp sea winds blowing down from the Arctic. Those on board are seeking peace, relaxation, adventure, escape. But there is no escape here in this place of unspoiled natural majesty. Because terror strolls the decks even in the brilliant light of day... and death is a conspicuous, unwelcome passenger. And a former Seattle policeman -- a damaged Homicide Detective who has come to heal from fresh, stinging wounds -- will find that the grim ghosts pursuing him were not left behind ... as a pleasure cruise gone horribly wrong carries him inexorably into lethal, ever-darkening waters.

16. Partner in Crime (2003)
    The dead woman on a cold slab in the Arizona morgue was a talented artist recently arrived from the West Coast. The Washington State Attorney General's office thinks this investigation is too big for a small-town female law officer to handle, so they're sending Sheriff Joanna Brady some unwanted help—a seasoned detective named Beaumont. Sheriff Brady resents his intrusion, and Bisbee, Arizona, with its ghosts and memories, is the last place J.P. Beaumont wants to be. But the twisting desert road they must reluctantly travel together is leading them into a very deadly nest of rattlers. And if they hope to survive, suddenly trust is the only option they have left ...

17. Long Time Gone (2005)
    When a middle-aged nun, unexpectedly, recalls the grisly details of an unsolved murder she witnessed as a child, Special Homicide Investigator J.P. Beaumont finds himself wrapped in a case wher a band of powerful co-conspirators who are willing to go to any length to keep their deadly secrets hidden. Meanwhile, Beau's former partner, Ron Peters, becomes the prime suspect after his ex-wife is killed. Barred from any official involvement in the case, Beau watches helplessly as his friend's family is slowly torn apart. Faced with personal conflicts and shocking suprises, Beau must struggle to solves one of his most baffling and dangerous cases yet.

18. Justice Denied (2007)
    Seattle investigator J. P. Beaumont is handed a hush–hush special assignment: find out what really happened in the shooting death of an ex–con. At first, everything seems straightforward, but the deeper Beau digs, the more complicated it becomes. The ex–con really had turned over a new leaf and his murder has nothing to do with, say, a drug deal gone bad. Someone targeted DeShawn for death.
    
    Meanwhile, Beau's lover and fellow cop, Mel, is looking into cold cases, in order to close them once and for all. But suddenly, her investigation has tentacles reaching to Beau's, and the two begin to uncover a nightmarish conspiracy that could involve people in high places, even within the halls of law enforcement.

Joanna Brady Series

1. Desert Heat (1993)
   Life is good for Joanna Brady in the small desert community of Bisbee. She has Jenny, her adored nine-year-old daughter, and solid, honest, and loving husband, Andy, a local lawman who's running for Sheriff of Cochise County. But her good life explodes when a bullet destroys Andy Brady's future and leaves him dying beneath the blistering Arizona sun.
   
   The police brass claim that Andy was dirty -- up to his neck in drugs and smuggling -- and that the shooting was a suicide attempt. Joanna knows a cover-up when she hears one...and murder when she sees it. But her determined efforts to track down an assassin and clear her husband's name are placing herself and her Jenny in serious jeopardy. Because, in the desert, the truth can be far more lethal than a rattler's bite.

2. Tombstone Courage (1995)
   With grit, courage and dogged determination, Joanne 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.

3. Shoot Don't Shoot (1996)
   Still mourning her loss, Joanna Brady needs to be strong and supportive for her nine-year-old daughter, Jenny. She also has responsibilities to the people who elected her Sheriff. Joanna has the head and instinct for her new job, but not the experience—which is what brings her to Phoenix for a pre-Thanksgiving crash course in police training...and into the mystery of an imprisoned husband her gut tells her did not murder his estranged wife. Suddenly Sheriff Brady has a lot more to worry about than classes and the visiting family pre-holiday chaos. For her impromptu investigations drawing a serial killer too close for comfort—and closer, worse still, to Joanna's little girl.

4. Dead to Rights (1997)
   A woman is cruelly cut down in a remote corner of Arizona, killed on her nineteenth wedding anniversary by a drunk motorist. A year later, the driver himself dies badly, and all suspicions point to the slain woman's still grieving husband as his murderer. But the truth is rarely black and white in the long Southwestern shadows, and one law officer is not rushing to condemn the tragic widower so quickly: Joanna Brady, Sheriff of Cochise County. Brady's convictions, however, are leading her on a twisted trail through inhospitable country -- and setting her on a path that will bring her face-to-face with cold, calculating death in the high, lonely desert.

5. Skeleton Canyon (1998)
   Brianna "Bree" O'Brien never returned from Skeleton Canyon. Someone brutally murdered the pretty, popular teenager who had stolen away under cover of darkness to rendezvous with her boyfriend. Perhaps youthful rage, jealousy and savage passion cost young Bree her life. Or maybe she stumbled onto something too dangerous to know. Sheriff Joanna Brady of Cochise County knows only too well the pain of losing a loved one to violence. But she is disturbed by the O'Brien's insistence that Bree's boyfriend is responsible for their daughter's slaying. Joanna senses there are words not being spoken, and dark mysteries locked behind doors of the sprawling O'Brien family compound. But it is the strange disappearance of a good friend that is pulling Sheriff Brady ever closer to the lethal nest of lies, greed and secrets hiding in a desolate corner of the Arizona desert - where the next blood that feeds the parched, cracked earth could be her own.

6. Rattlesnake Crossing (1998)
   Sheriff Joanna Brady is the law in Cochise County, and she will never allow her personal trials to interfere with the job she was elected to do—especially now that death has invaded Bisbee, Arizona, and has shattered the small desert town's fragile peace.
   
   A gun dealer has died violently, and his stock of high-powered weapons has been cleaned out. Suspicion falls upon rancher Alton Hosfield, an armed separatist at war with the federal government and the local law—with everyone, in fact, whom he perceives as a threat to his independent way of life.
   
   Joanna Brady suspects the solution is not so cut-and-dried—especially when the cold-blooded slaying is followed by a series of others, equally horrific and perplexing. At best, an incendiary "Ruby Ridge" situation is brewing. At worst, a maniacal serial killer has come to feed on her unsuspecting community. But Joanna's preoccupation with bringing a murderer to justice could take a terrible toll on her private life . . . and unravel threads of family, love, and responsibility that might never again be retied.

7. Outlaw Mountain (2000)
   Alice Rogers, an elderly widow, is dead, found murdered in the Arizona desert. It's easy enough to pin the killing on the teens caught driving her car across the Mexican border, but Sheriff Brady isn't about to let it go at that. Alice was something of a free spirit, with a penchant for Scotch, the glitter of Las Vegas, and a romance with a man twenty years her junior. Her hot-tempered daughter Susan suspects Mom's boyfriend -- her former handyman who moved in instead of moving on when he finished his handy work. Now Susan's furious at her brother Clete, the do-nothing mayor of Tombstone, blaming him for not protecting their inheritance by breaking up their mother's winter romance.
   
   Yet all is not as it appears to be, and Joanna is forced to put her personal life on hold to dig deeper into Alice's death, the lives of her greedy offspring, and the identity of her mysterious gentleman friend. And as the investigation gets sidetracked by ugly local land disputes, it takes some troublesome twists and turns, until Sheriff Brady finds herself wading through a murky morass of graft and corruption that may have given someone reason to kill -- and kill again.

8. Devil's Claw (2001)
   Set against the backdrop of the modern west, this gripping tale finds Sheriff Brady juggling a precarious overload in both her personal and professional lives. About to be married, Joanna's facing a daughter turning twelve and going on twenty, a meddlesome mother micro-managing her wedding, and new in-laws arriving any day. The sudden death of her much-loved neighbor and handyman, Clayton Rhodes, creates further turmoil, leaving Joanna shocked, saddened, and the target of Clayton's irate and irrational daughter, who accuses the Sheriff's Department of covering up a possible murder.
   
   But amidst the uproar, the report of a homicide at Cochise Stronghold in the Dragoon Mountains quickly captures Joanna's full attention. An Indian woman has been found shot to death--a woman recently released from prision after serving time for the manslaughter killing of her husband. She is the mother of a missing fifteen-year-old, Lucy Ridder.
   
   The death at first appears to be a case of domestic rage finally exploding'and a troubled teen runaway may be a victim, or a cold-blooded killer. Yet as Joanna deals with the long-standing troubles of Clayton Rhodes' family and digs deeper into the mysterious life of Lucy and her family, she discovers that investigating family hostilities is leading her down a twisted trail of hatred, greed, and far-reaching consequences--and into a dangerous world where violence is the first response and long buried secrets are a reason to kill…or die.
   
   Once again, J.A. Jance delivers a gritty, deftly written thriller that unfolds on a vivid landscape of raw beauty and unrelenting danger. And, as always, Sheriff Joanna Brady brings the setting to life with the sensitivity, spirit, and intense passion for justice that makes Jance novels ring with authenticity.

9. Paradise Lost (2002)
   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 tentmate, 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.

10. Partner in Crime (2003)
    The dead woman on a cold slab in the Arizona morgue was a talented artist recently arrived from the West Coast. The Washington State Attorney General's office thinks this investigation is too big for a small-town female law officer to handle, so they're sending Sheriff Joanna Brady some unwanted help—a seasoned detective named Beaumont. Sheriff Brady resents his intrusion, and Bisbee, Arizona, with its ghosts and memories, is the last place J.P. Beaumont wants to be. But the twisting desert road they must reluctantly travel together is leading them into a very deadly nest of rattlers. And if they hope to survive, suddenly trust is the only option they have left ...

11. Exit Wounds (2004)
    The heat is a killer in Cochise County, Arizona, with temperatures over 100 degrees. In the suffocating stillness of an airless trailer, a woman is lying dead, a bullet hole in her chest. Why someone would murder a harmless loner with a soft spot for stray dogs is only one of the questions nagging at the local police; another is why the killer used an eighty-five-year-old bullet, fired from the same weapon that slaughtered two other women who were discovered bound, naked, and gruesomely posed on the remote edge of a rancher's land.
    
    The slayings are as oppressive as the blistering heat for Sheriff Joanna Brady, who must shoulder the added double burden of a brutal reelection campaign and major developments on the home front. With suddenly more on her plate than many big-city law officers have to contend with, Joanna must put marital distractions and an opponent's dirty tricks in the background and deal with the terrifying reality that now threatens everyone in her jurisdiction: a serial killer in their midst.
    
    A twisted and lethal drama is unfolding in this small corner of the southwestern desert as fear, hatred, and the evil at the core of one family's history come to a rapid boil beneath a merciless Arizona sun. Pressure mounts for Sheriff Brady personally and professionally while she pursues a sadistic murderer into the shadows of the past to get to the roots of a monstrous obsession ... and expose the permanent wounds of a crime far worse than homicide.

12. Dead Wrong (2006)
    Juggling a family and a career is never easy—and it's becoming a real challenge for Sheriff Joanna Brady. Coping with the impending delivery of her second child as well as a staff shortage, the last things Joanna needs are two serious crimes.
    
    First, the body of an unidentified man is found in the desert, all of his fingers savagely severed. Following the scant clues, Joanna learns that the victim was an ex-con who had served twenty years in prison after confessing to the murder of his pregnant wife. During his last days he was seen following and photographing a young woman.
    
    Then one of Joanna's officers is brutally attacked and left for dead while on an unau-thorized stakeout. Because the officer is one of its own, the department throws its resources into finding her attacker.
    
    But the murder haunts Joanna. Being a sher-iff is no longer an empty position she wants to hold—somehow it has become what she is. Her job is to avenge man's inhumanity toward man, and finding out who the victim was and why he is dead is what she has been summoned to do with her life. Strapping on a bulletproof vest, she'll risk everything to see that justice is done.

1. Hour of the Hunter (1990)
   The hunter is free to kill again -- and hour by hour, he draws closer . . .
   
   The brilliant psychopath Andrew Carlisle spent only six years in prison for the brutal torture–murder of a young girl of the Tohono O'otham tribe. The testimony of Diana Ladd -- a teacher on the reservation -- put Carlisle behind bars, and now she can't ignore the dark, mystical signs that say a predator has returned to prowl the Arizona desert. Because no matter where Diana and her young son hide . . . he will find them.

2. Kiss of the Bees (2001)
   Twenty years ago, a darkness rose up out of the blistering heat of the Arizona desert and descended upon the Walker family of Tucson. A personified evil, a serial killer named Andrew Carlisle, brought blood and terror into their world, nearly murdering Diana Ladd Walker and her young son, Davy. Now much has changed. The family has grown larger. There's Lani, the beloved adopted daughter—a beautiful Native American teenager "kissed by the bees" and destined, according to Tohono 0'othham lore, to become a woman of great spiritual power. And now that the psychopath Carlisle has died in prison, Brandon and Diana Walker believe that their long nightmare is finally over.
   
   They are wrong.
   
   The monster is dead, but his malevolence lives on . . . in another.

3. Day of the Dead (2005)
   For more than thirty years, the case has remained stone cold -- the brutal murder of a local Papago girl, her butchered body found stuffed into a large cooler that was left on the side of Highway 86. No one ever paid for the horrific crime ... except, that is, the victim's loved ones, who suffer to this day.
   
   Brandon Walker, once the sheriff of Pima County, Arizona, no longer feels he has purpose. A reluctant retiree living in the long shadow of his wife, Diana Ladd, a successful author of true-crime books, he is bored with golf, and more so with life. Salvation, though, comes with an invitation to join the ranks of The Last Chance, an exclusive nationwide fraternity of former cops and forensic experts who look into unsolved murders that have baffled local law enforcement agencies. And one such case is staring Brandon in the face with cold, dead, entreating eyes -- a murder investigation that may have been mishandled by his department when he was a young lawman.
   
   The trail of a sadistic, calculating, and blood-chillinglyefficient killer soon leads Brandon into a strange world at the unlikely border between forensic science and tribal mysticism: a place where evil hides behind a perfect facade. Now the seeds of terror sown three decades earlier have bloomed and are bearing awful fruit. A forgotten homicide in the Arizona desert is only the beginning of the nightmare that is about to ensnare a diligent ex-cop and his family, for Brandon Walker is the only one still alive who can unravel a blood knot of terror and obsession that will free a dark truth more frightening than he ever imagined.
   
   A novel that bristles with electrifying intensity and is alive with the breathtaking atmosphere and rich characterizations that have become J. A. Jance trademarks, Day of the Dead is a gripping and extraordinary journey into the darkness -- a welcome return to the shadow world of the sensational New York Times bestseller Kiss of the Bees -- and the author's most spellbinding and powerfully resonant thriller to date.

• After the Fire (2004)
  Before she found fame as a best-selling mystery author, Judith Jance wrestled with the personal anguish of being married to an alcoholic and secretly composed poetry that was published as After the Fire the year before her debut novel. Now this deeply personal work is available in a new annotated edition in which Jance offers unblinking insights into these searing poems--remaking After the Fire as a portrait of addiction and the insidious ways in which it destroys relationships. 
  Audio Cassette