(2001)Another good Sheriff Joanna Brady mystery about her daughter & fellow girl scout Dora finding a dead body on a campout. Dora is subsequently murdered and then the suspect is murdered.

While Sheriff Joanna Brady is at a conference of Arizona Sheriffs in Page Arizona bad things are happening in Chochise County on the other end of the state. Joanna's daughter Jenny and another girl are getting in trouble for smoking on a girl scout campout. Several people disappear and are found dead. Just the usual stuff in lightly populated Chochise County Arizona. I enjoy these novels by J.A. Jance. Maybe because I like the place names in that part of Arizona. It's been years since I have been there but I can still picture the Dragoon Mountains and Cochise's Stronghold in my mind. Some suprises among the murder and mayhem so I won't reveal a thing. ( )

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I was disappointed in the depiction of a married woman (actually more than one) who behaves like a child. Monogamy at its worst! I also noticed - suddenly, about 7 books into our story arc, that this author doesn't describe people. Great descriptions of the desert, but I suddenly realized that I was sure what Butch looked like. The plotting was fine. ( )

While Joanna and Butch are at the annual Sheriff’s convention, Jenny has to go on a Girl Scout Camping trip she’d prefer to skip. It doesn’t help that, through the un-luck of the draw, she’s the tent-mate of a girl that smells, is abrasive and no one likes. But at lights out Dora wants to sneak a cigarette, getting Jenny to try one. So begins a disturbing set of events as the girls take a hike they know they shouldn’t and come across a dead woman whose murder is brutal enough to disturb even the medical examiner.

Lots of things are going on in the homefront too and there is plenty of anger and emotion to go around for a number of reasons. All of it is a learning experience for Joanna who must also decide if she wants to run for re-election and how it would affect her family.

Every once in a while it’s easy to guess the whodunit fairly early in the story, even as threads take you in different directions before revealing a much larger story. That’s not the case in this tale as the overworked/understaffed Sheriff’s department work three homicides. Joanna’s handling of capturing one of the murderers has her staff impressed with not only how she pulls off the last minute coordination from different departments, but her compassion in dealing with the perp’s needs; something you wouldn’t expect to see from others in her position.

More than an administrator, Joanna involves herself in every homicide, and since they’ve only got two detectives, she and her Chief Deputy are also taking on more of her detectives’ duties when investigations begin piling up. She’s in an interesting position as she’s learned about being a cop and a detective through being involved, and yet she’s able to see things from a different, sometimes larger perspective as she’s looking at both the forest and the trees. ( )