Devil’s Claw

“Yes,” Joa

“Does he drive a hard bargain?” Joyce Roberts asked.

“Probably.”

“Good. The tougher he is, the better.”

“How’s Reba?” Joa

“Contrite about what she did to you, but mad as hell at De

“I will, to begin with,” Joa

Half an hour later, as Joa

“We found the perfect dress,” Kristin said, bubbling with happiness. “I just talked to my grandmother, and she’s going to go buy it today. She told me that just because my dad is her son doesn’t mean he isn’t a creep.”

“Have you and Terry set a date?”

“We wanted to check with you first. What about the week after you get back?”

Joa

“We will,” Kristin said. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Joa

Eleanor had called to say Joa

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

“Lucy wanted to come see her grandmother. While we wait for visiting hours, Lucy and Big Red are fooling around out back. Want me to go get them?”

“I will,” Joa

Behind the hospital, in a clearing below the retaining wall that held the hospital’s helicopter pad, Joa

“Aren’t you worried that a helicopter might need to land?” Joa

“No,” Lucy replied without looking away from the hawk. “He’ll come if I call him. We’ll get out of the way.”

Lucy stopped watching the bird and turned to face Joa

“Grandma Yates gave me the other one,” Lucy said. “She told me she thought my mother would have wanted me to have it. She says I should have them made into earrings. What do you think?”

“I think your grandmother’s right,” Joa

“About the earrings?” Lucy asked.

“About your mother wanting you to have this.”

“And was she really a bad person?”

Joa

Just then a terrible screech rent the air. Looking up, Joa

“And I think your great-grandmother was right as well,” Joa

“What do you mean?” Lucy asked.

“I mean,” Joa

EPILOGUE

The wedding was beautiful, although Joa

She and Butch left the reception at Palominas while the party was still in full swing and drove as far as Tucson to spend the night. Early Sunday morning found them standing in a check-in line at Tucson International Airport. “So,” the clerk said with a smile as she examined the passports Butch had presented for identification purposes along with their tickets. “Is Paris your final destination today?”

Butch nodded. “Have you ever been to Paris before?” the clerk continued.

“I have, but my wife hasn’t,” he replied.

Meanwhile Joa

“Paris?” she blurted. “That’s where we’re going-Paris, France?”

Butch shrugged. “It’s April, isn’t it? Paris is supposed to be lovely this time of year. At least, that’s what I’ve been told. And it should be a pretty nice place for you to buy those new clothes. You sure as hell need them.”

J.A. Jance on the Origin of Joa

After writing my first thriller, Hour of the Hunter, when it was time to go back to J.P. Beaumont I found that writing was fun again. That was when my editor suggested that I might consider starting a second series so I’d be able to alternate between sets of characters.

I had written ten books through a middle-aged male detective’s point of view. It seemed to me that it would be fun to write about a woman for a change. Because Beau was a Seattle homicide detective, most of the books took place in and around Seattle. Up to that time, I had spent the bulk of my life living in Arizona. And it seemed like it would be fun to use some of the desert stuff that was percolating in the back of my head.

In many of the books I’d read that featured female sleuths, I had found that the characters seemed to live isolated, solitary lives with maybe a cat and a single dying ficus for company. Most of the women I knew lived complicated lives that involved husbands and children, in-laws and friends. They juggled family responsibilities and jobs along with church and community service. I set out to make my character, Joa

As a writer, I try not to be too buoyed by good reviews or too devastated by bad ones, but there was one review that came in on the Joa

Thank you, Mostly Murder.