Tombstone Courage audiobook

4 Stars for Tombstone Courage: Joanna Brady Mystery Series, Book 2 (audiobook) by J. A. Jance read by Nancy Lee-Painter. The first day on the job, Cochise County’s new sheriff has a murder to solve. She immediately goes to work trying to make her dead husband’s clothes fit. There is no time to prepare for this new job as she has a murderer to track down.

Good second entry in the Joanna Brady series. This is the followup to Desert Heat where at the end, Joanna is considering running for sheriff of Cochise County, Arizona. In this volume, she is elected sheriff but her lack of experience makes it very hard for her to assume a leadership position, especially since one of her main deputies was campaigning for another person during the election. Then once she gets elected, she has a double murder on her hands, one of which occurred many years before. The current murder is of a local rancher who is accused by his daughter of molestation when she was young. But is that what really happened? Joanna is really feeling her way in this one and along the way makes some key mistakes in law enforcement but with a little help is able to come to the right conclusions. At the end, she is enrolled in a law enforcement course to help her in her duties and responsibilities. The next novel should provide more details...looking forward to it!

Joanna Brady is the newly elected Sheriff. The only female Sheriff in the state of Arizona. If that were not enough pressure, she has to deal with hostile deputies, the investigation of two homicides, and find a way to cope with her husband's death and reassure her young daughter that all will be well.If this continues, Joanna Brady is going to wind up being one of my fictional heroes. She's a strong woman. I enjoyed this book every bit as much as DESERT HEAT, the first book in the series--maybe even more so due to the complexity of the plot. I highly recommend these books. They are not fluffy mysteries. They're about real life and real problems. You go, Joanna Brady! Can't wait to see what you'll do next.

I don't know how, but with every Jance book, I become a bigger fan. This second in the series kept me reading instead of napping on the commuter train in the morning. A bunch of new characters that I look forward to know more about in the coming novels.

This is a good easy read. It started off kind of slow but the paced picked up and I had to read it as fast as I could

Why is this series so much fun?

Nice 2nd book in the series. Definitely built up a mystery, so much so I was concerned we'd be left with questions. Can't wait to see how some of these Characters play out in the coming books.

Joanna Brady is a brand new widow who took her deceased husband's spot on the ballot for the office of sheriff. To the surprise of many, she won by a landslide becoming the first female sheriff in Arizona. But she has not law enforcement experience. Harold Patterson is an elderly rancher who is accused of child molestation by a middle-age, estranged daughter. When Harold is found murdered in a mine shaft o mmuch older body is found under him. The daughter sueing him appears to be under the control of her thearopist and lawyer. Brady has to learn on the job. I think a prequel about Joanna's husband's murder would be an interesting addition to the series.

I have read a flurry of the Joanna Brady books trying to catch up on the series...compelling stories and characters...This one provides the back story of her run for election and winning the sheriff's seat and is immediately thrust into solving 2 related murders, unraveling a deep, dark family mystery and winning the grudged respect of her department...fun as always!!!

This story picks up a few weeks after the first book. One of the things that appealed to me about this series was the MC, Joanna Brady, the first female sheriff for Conchise County in AZ. I like bold, bad@$$, fearless, female, law enforcement MC’s; they make for some great subjects for some really good stories. Joanna is interesting, and this book reveals that she’s working on obtaining her bad@$$ merits and status and definitely has a lot of potential.I also like that the series starts out in the early 90’s before a lot of the technological advancements that have been developed and invented for the law enforcement agencies of today. Back in the early 90’s, law enforcement officers had to rely on good, old-fashioned detecting skills and investigating abilities. There was also the requisite racist slurs and attitudes towards the Hispanic characters and community. Personally, the book could have done without that crap; it added absolutely nothing to the story.I also found many of the historical references of that time amusing. Like how people only had to dial four numbers in a phone number to reach someone in town and what a hassle it was to have to use all seven numbers in a phone number. LMAO!!! I especially found the reference to the workings of a dot matrix printer hilarious. Remember those? The ones that took the kind of paper that had the holed and perforated edges that you had to tear off after the document printed. Don’t even get me started on how election ballot counting was completed the next day because back then, electoral districts didn’t have to spend weeks counting (and recounting multiple times) mail-in ballots. Back then, mail-in ballots were a very small and insignificant percentage of the overall ballots. There were so many other references that provided moments of amusement and nostalgia for this early Gen-Xer.Anyway, the book summary describes the premise of the story so, I’m not going to repeat it here. The first half of the story revolves around Joanna’s starting her new position as the first female Sheriff in Conchise County and all the chauvinistic nonsense that goes with the job. The second half revolves around the investigation of the two murders: one that just happened and the second one years ago. Early in the second half, I began to suspect one of the characters of the most recent murder. WOW!!! Was I ever wrong!!! The ending was pretty scary and intense for Joanna, all a part of paying her dues and earning her bad@$$ points. I look forward to the next installment.

This the second novel I have read by Jance, the first being "Cruel Intents" which I found to be less than spectacular and the last Ali Reynolds book I'll ever read. Though some of the issues I had with C.I. were present in this novel such as the plot not kicking in until about half way through the book, exposition out of nowhere, too much time spent in the heads of the characters, they were not as bad and were only mildly annoying. There is a mystery here and some pretty good thrills. I wished Jance had focused more on that but nonetheless, I enjoyed what was there. Unlike Ali Reynolds and the rest of the blank slates in C.I., I actually liked Joana Brady and many of the other characters. The aspect I enjoyed the most was the setting. The reason I started getting in Jance was because she is among the few mystery writers who write thrillers set in the southwest. Having grown up in New Mexico, it is a gem to find something in this genre set in the ominous environment of the southwest. She does a good job of setting the mood with the landscape and people and the rural southwestern life. This series I do seeing myself return too.