SHE SCREAMED AS NEEDLE-SHARP SPINES PLUNGED DEEP INTO HER PAPER-THIN FLESH

Joanna Brady, young widow, devoted mom, and Sheriff of Cochise County, Arizona, is a tough cop who gives no ground to lawbreakers. But now she’s dealing with some big-time political maneuvering that could let someone get away with murder.

When an elderly widow is found dead 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 buying it. The victim was a free spirit with a lover twenty years her junior and enough money for her grown kids to fight over.

Joanna is forced to put her personal life on hold to dig deeper into the murder. But as the investigation gets sidetracked by some ugly local land disputes, Sheriff Brady finds herself wading through a murky morass of graft and corruption that reaches into high places, and may have given someone reason to kill . . and kill again.

Cholla is beautiful. Seen backlit by vivid Arizona sunlight, it looks as though each of the branches is surrounded by a heavenly glow, a delicate, golden aura. It’s only closer investigation that reveals the truth. That beautiful glow comes from the needle sharp spines that surround the inner core of the branch. In other words, look but do not touch!

Years ago a friend told me about how in a particularly ugly bit of high school hazing, someone was thrown into a patch of cholla and nearly died as a result of it. Those are the kinds of stories that stay with me and can, given the right circumstances, turn into books years later.

JAJ