Blessing of the Lost Girls: A Brady and Walker Family Novel

by J. A. Jance

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

The Brady and Walker families are back in a police procedural rich in character and setting. These pages will turn quicker than you can keep up with as the mystery unfolds to reveal an ending that you'll never see coming.

From J. A. Jance’s New York Times bestselling Brady and Walker novels, federal investigator Dan Pardee, Brandon Walker’s son-in-law, crosses paths with Sheriff Joanna Brady as he traces the bloody path of a merciless serial killer across the Southwest in this intense thriller.

Driven by a compulsion that challenges his self-control, the man calling himself Charles Milton prowls the rodeo circuit, hunting young women. He chooses those he believes are the most vulnerable, wandering alone and distracted, before he strikes. For years, he has been meticulous in his methods, abducting, murdering, and disposing of his victims while leaving no evidence of his crimes—or their identities—behind. Indigenous women have become his target of choice, knowing law enforcement’s history of ignoring their disappearances.

A cold case has just been assigned to Dan Pardee, a field officer with the newly formed Missing and Murdered Indigenous People’s Task Force. Rosa Rios, a young woman of Apache descent and one-time rodeo star, vanished three years ago. Human remains, a homicide victim burned beyond recognition, were discovered in Cochise County around the time she went missing. They have finally been confirmed to be Rosa. With Sheriff Joanna Brady’s help, Dan is determined to reopen the case and bring long-awaited justice to Rosa’s family. As the orphaned son of a murdered indigenous woman, he feels an even greater, personal obligation to capture this killer.

Joanna’s daughter Jennifer is also taking a personal interest in this case, having known Rosa from her own amateur rodeo days. Now a criminal justice major, she’s unofficially joining the investigation. And as it becomes clear that Rosa was just one victim of a serial killer, both Jennifer and Dan know they’re running out of time to catch an elusive predator who’s proven capable of getting away with murder.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780063010116
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	09/19/2023
Sold by:	HARPERCOLLINS
Format:	eBook
Pages:	352
Sales rank:	1,872
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

J. A. Jance is the New York Times bestselling author of the J. P. Beaumont series, the Joanna Brady series, the Ali Reynolds series, six thrillers about the Walker Family, and one volume of poetry. Born in South Dakota and brought up in Bisbee, Arizona, she lives with her husband in Seattle, Washington.

Hometown:

Bellevue, Washington

Date of Birth:

October 27, 1944

Place of Birth:

Watertown, South Dakota

Education:

B. A., University of Arizona, 1966; M. Ed. in Library Science, University of Arizona, 1970

Website:

http://www.jajance.com/

Editorial Reviews

07/31/2023

Jance (Nothing to Lose) proves she’s still at the top of her game in this tense crossover of her Joanna Brady and Walker Family series. A prologue, set in July 2022, identifies drifter Charles Milton as the murderer of six people. The action then flashes back to 2019, when Milton abducts Rosa Rios from a bar in Tucson, Ariz., before strangling and stabbing her to death. Arizona sheriff Joanna Brady and her daughter, Jennifer, who knew Rios, take notice, and since Rios was Native American, her disappearance also attracts the attention of Dan Pardee, an investigator for the Department of the Interior’s new unit for cases involving Indigenous victims (and son-in-law of Brandon Walker). Milton’s efforts to disguise Rios’s body—which include dousing it with bleach, removing her teeth, and burning the remains—delay authorities’ progress in identifying her. When the remains are finally identified, Dan, Joanna, and Jennifer all set out to track down the person responsible. It’s a testament to Jance’s talents that she gives away the killer’s identity and fate at the book’s outset, yet still manages to wring heart-stopping suspense from the central investigation. Nearly four decades into her career, Jance is still finding new ways to thrill her readers. Agent: Alice Volpe, Northwest Literary. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

“Jance proves she’s still at the top of her game in this tense crossover of her Joanna Brady and Walker Family series. Nearly four decades into her career, Jance is still finding new ways to thrill her readers.” — Publishers Weekly

“An intriguing read guaranteed to keep audiences engaged from first page to last.” — Booklist

“Fans of police procedurals with a Southwestern flair will love Joanna’s determination to manage marriage, motherhood, and policing in this 19th Joanna Brady book.” — Library Journal on Missing and Endangered

“The two parallel cases provide plenty of action, while keeping a premium on character studies and violence to a minimum. Once again, the compassionate, intelligent Joanna balances a busy home life and a complex job with aplomb. This long-running series consistently entertains.”  — Publishers Weekly on Missing and Endangered

“This is the J.A. Jance I love. Her characterizations and ability to spin a tale keep you turning pages well into the night.” — Book Reporter on Nothing to Lose

“J. A. does an outstanding job of delivering a very emotional book, wrapped up within a mystery that keeps the reader on edge to the very end.” — Suspense Magazine on Sins of the Fathers

“Bestseller Jance’s enjoyable 25^th J.P. Beaumont mystery…J.P. is a fully developed character, and his frequent calls to [his wife] Melissa to discuss the case are both touching and insightful. They make a good team even at a distance. New readers will happily join the ranks of longtime fans.” — Publishers Weekly on Nothing to Lose

From the Publisher

Hillary Huber, longtime narrator of the Sheriff Joanna Brady series, is wisely tapped to voice this exciting new Brady and Walker mystery. Huber energetically embodies both familiar and new characters, transporting listeners to the story's Southwestern locale. She's especially fun to listen to when youthfully voicing Joanna's daughter, Jenny, a criminology student who grabs the investigative reins after a fellow rodeo rider survives an attempted murder by someone stalking Native American women. What doesn't work so well in audio is the parceled out myth that starts many of the audiobook's chapters, which leaves listeners confused and wondering where the chilling serial-killer action went? The overabundance of lead characters also slows down an otherwise thrilling chase to catch an Arizona killer. J.T. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine

OCTOBER 2023 - AudioFile

2023-08-12
For reasons she doesn’t explain until her “After-Afterword,” Jance works her most popular detective, Cochise County Sheriff Joanna Brady, into the latest installment of her Walker Family chronicles.

But it’s not a starring role. Joanna is the one whom Dan Pardee, a federal agent of the Missing and Murdered Indigenous People Task Force, asks for help when the body of a young woman discovered outside Tucson three years ago is finally identified as that of Rosa Rios, who was followed out of a local bar and strangled shortly after she was expelled from high school. As the husband of Dr. Lanita Walker-Pardee, Dan is the pivotal figure who binds together the myriad parts of a convoluted tale that combines Indigenous family history and serial homicide. But it’s criminal-justice major Jenny Brady who realizes that the case her mother has described to her has unsettling parallels to the recent attack on Jenny’s rodeo competitor Deborah Russell, who was lucky enough to be rescued by the worthless boyfriend with whom she’d had a rendezvous. Deb hasn’t reported the incident because she was afraid that her Mormon family would be scandalized by both the boyfriend and the rendezvous, and she has no intention of reporting it now. So there’s no official record of the attack, and Jenny, then Dan, are the only ones who have access to the information that will ultimately unmask a killer revealed on page 1 as Charlie Milton, né Ronald J. Addison. Readers who find the manhunt lacking in surprise may prefer the updates on Lani and Dan’s complicated family, but it’s hard to imagine many readers loving the whole shebang.

A labor of love triggered by a serial killer.

Kirkus Reviews