The setting for J. A. Jance’s latest novel, DOWNFALL, is the high mountain country of Southeast Arizona. Bisbee is the county seat and Joanna Brady is the tough lady sheriff of Cochise County. Sheriff Brady is known for her ability to keep a lot of balls in the air and never tire. But she has never been weighted down with so much baggage as in Downfall. First of all, Joanna is five months pregnant with her third child—her oldest, Jenny, is off to college at NAU in Flagstaff. She is also campaigning against a tough challenger for an election only six weeks away. She is a mom to a five-year-old boy and wife to a supportive stay-at-home husband and father, Butch. In the last two weeks Sheriff Brady has struggled with the loss of her mother and beloved stepfather killed in a highway shooting incident north of Phoenix. She has also been busy with funeral arrangements for them. If all this isn’t enough to wear down even the strongest of executives, the bodies of two women are found at the base of Geronimo Peak near Bisbee. Joanna is not sure if the deaths are the result of an accident, a murder/suicide, or double homicide. The investigation becomes more interesting and even delicate when one of the women is identified as a PhD candidate in microbiology at the U of A in Tucson, while the other is a teacher at a private school and wife of a local minister with seemingly no connection to each other. The sheriff and her team progress on an investigative path that takes them through a series of squalid incidents that turn their stomachs and even follow them home. Ms Jance has written a great novel. In it she has captured every conceivable human emotion from humor to fear, sorrow and anger. Even the trust of long time friends comes into question. I could not put this book down.
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