De vertaling is a real partypooper

I had to stop listening to the audio version of this. Worst narration EVER by Ellen Travolta. Papers shuffling noise in the background, severe dry mouth, false teeth clicking, has to take a breath in the middle of sentences, has to take 2 or 3 breaths before beginning a sentence. Can't understand how she got the job of narrating books, never mind that they produced and released it to the unsuspecting public. Don't buy the audio version!! Wish there were minus stars for cases such as this.

The story itself is exciting enough, but I really enjoyed the place where this all takes place: Southern Arizona. I decided to start at Jance's first book, so I look forward to reading more adventures of Joann Brady taking place in some of my favorite places on earth!

It is interesting that the Cochise County Sheriff was involved with some bad things, given that one died in a DUI a few years ago, and the influence of drug cartels is much larger today, so it will be interesting to see how Jance writes about that over time from when this book was first written over 30 years ago in 1993, before NAFTA, Operation Wetback, 9/11, before a lot of things...

This book had too many swear words for me. The story was a little crazy. No one believes the wife that her husband wouldn't commit suicide and she has to prove his innocence. The reference to sexual acts by two of the characters made me cringe and I had to fast forward. I don't need to read this.
I have enjoyed some of these authors books, but this is the first in this series and I'm not sure I want to continue.

page 202
"Opening it, she took out what appeared to be a postcard."

I liked the main character. She's spunky. I'll definitely read more of this series.

I really enjoyed this start to the series. I am looking forward to reading the next one.

I think I will also look up Jance's other series.

It was fun to read about the beginning of Joanna and how she became the sheriff. I've read some of the later books in this series and so this was nice. There are some pretty violent sex scenes that were disturbing but all in all it was well written. I'm only giving it three stars because it's not a great piece of literature and didn't make me think or ponder life at all. Just a quick fun mystery. I read it in one day and it's easy easy. I had pretty much figured out the mystery and who was involved before I got done, but it was still fun. Don't expect your world to change over this one, but it's great for when you need a no brainer!

Great story and characters and nicely narrated.

Desert Heat by J.A. Jance is the first suspense novel in the Brady Series. It introduces Joanna Brady , wife of a murdered Sheriffs Deputy in Cochise County Arizona.

The novel deftly introduces the family and region history which lead to this crime. The various factors driving Joanna to respond to and fight to solve the murder are carefully followed and met head on by Joanna, a strong woman following her father and husband in the role of crime fighter.

The determination shown by Joanna in this book made me want to learn more about her in the later . books in Jance's series.

Overall, a very satisfying story with good characters and a good premise.

When this book was over, all I could think was, "Finally!" First, the narrator was awful, her game show host voice so ill-suited to story reading. Ugh, her pacing, her inflection, her style--terrible!

Second, and more importantly, the writing was bad. I don't often say a book is bad; usually I can find something redeeming. Not in this case. The narrative was mediocre, reparative, downright boring. The characters, especially the protagonist, was horribly underdeveloped and poorly revealed. And so inconsistent it was confusing.

The only reason I finished this one was because I didn't have another audiobook ready to go. And by getting to the end, I learned the protagonist goes from blubbering, floundering, confused new widow storming from one pointless errand to the next, and then she runs for sheriff. Of course she does. She did nothing at all to solve her husband's murder except run around yelling at everyone that it had been murder, so naturally, the author made her sheriff.

Ahh. This is one to pass. There are so many books and so little time, don't waste yours with this one.

I don't think this series is for me. Although there were parts I liked, there were far more parts where I found myself saying things like "That makes NO sense!" or "Why the heck did she do THAT???" or "What is she THINKING???"

There are plenty of decent reviews, however, so I guess it's just not the series for me.