I was worried that, having read book 2 first, that I would not enjoy this one. Though I already knew what would happen to at least two of the key characters by the end of the book, I did enjoy watching the story unfold. I'm looking forward to more in this series.

Enjoyed it! I really liked getting to know the character "Joanna Brady". A strong, spunky, clever woman! Whoa! What a career change!. You Go Girl! I give it 3.5 stars***! I plan on reading the others in this series. :)

Suspenseful ... only put the book down once after I started it and not by choice! I love the main character Joanna Brady. I've read several others in this series and now I've finally seen where it all started. An entertaining read.

I listened to this, hoping to find another audio book series. However, not sure if I'll continue. It takes almost half of the book to set up the premise. Johanna doesn't really DO anything, except yell at all who assumes her husband committed suicide. I kept thinking, Get going with the investigation. As others have said, the audio was very poor; it sounded like someone was turning pages in the background.

This book introduces us to Joanna Brady. Her husband is a deputy sheriff and is running for sheriff when he is murdered. All the evidence points to him having been crooked, but Joanna sets out to prove otherwise. A good story setting up an entertaining series with lots of fun, likable characters.

Read LONG before GoodReads.
I read everything in this series, love it.

Abandoned due to boredom.

Sympathetic characters, but not much mystery at all. There are two murders but no surprises and the resolution is abrupt.

(It didn't help that I listened to the now out of print audio with amazingly amateurish reading by Ellen Travolta. The easy-going nature of the storytelling and the fact that she was competent with voices allowed me to finish, but it really was appallingly bad.)

Desert Heat is the first book in the Joanna Brady series. It begins with Joanna waiting impatiently for her husband who has promised to be home on time to take her out for their tenth anniversary. The Cochise County Deputy, who is also running for Sheriff, had special plans but he’s hours late. Becoming worried, Joanna heads out in her car looking for him after finding out he’d left the station hours ago. She finds him shot and is barely alive just off the road. Almost before he is transported to the hospital, rumors begin to circulate that Andy is a good cop turned bad and that he tried to commit suicide rather than to risk having his illegal dealings with drug smugglers exposed. Of course, Joanna doesn't believe any of the rumors and sets out on a mission to discover the true story and to find Andy's attacker.

There are plenty of surprises in this book and even though we know from the beginning who the murderer is, the motive for the murder remains a mystery until the end of the book. Joanna is a very likable character. She’s vulnerable but both tough and determined. She's an engaging character but the secondary characters need some filling out. This is quite usual in the “first” book of a series so I'm not going to let that deter me from reading the next one. I lived in Tucson for almost forty years and traveled to Bisbee several times. It's obvious Jance has lived in the area and her inclusion of local landmarks made this a very enjoyable read for me. Desert Heat is a quick and enjoyable read for those who enjoy a good mystery set in the desert southwest.

Why did I

wait so long to read this wonderful book?! So glad I chose it {on a whim) and I'll be reading the whole series very quickly. Recommend this for those who want an exciting read with likeable, fully rounded characters. Jance is an expert creator of believable plots and people.

4.5⭐ Wow! Why did I wait so long to read this series?

The writing is great. The characters and story pulled me in from the very first page. I feel connected to one of the characters immediately even though he probably had two dialogues. How does J.A. Jance do it?! I can't wait to listen to more.

I went into this one blind and enjoyed it so I won't get into plot details. Joanna Brady is an insurance agent in Bisbee, Arizona. She's married to Andy, a cop and they have a nine-year-old daughter named Jenny. Their life will soon turn upside down. I find the reveal predictable otherwise I would bump this up. Nevertheless, it was an awesome beginning to a series.

There are two versions of the audiobook and I chose the one read by Hillary Huber as always I enjoy her performance. And yay, the whole series is on Hoopla!

Take notes, Rian Johnson. This is how you subvert expectations. Going into this short mystery/procedural, I was expecting that the wife of the deceased main character would be the one discovering all the secrets and single-handedly solving what happened to her husband. As it turns out, the real hero of the story is the girlfriend/victim of the assassin, Angie. Without her, the corruption wouldn't have been uncovered, and the death of Joanna's husband would have remained a mystery. This novel bounces back and forth between our protagonist Joanna, the girlfriend Angie, and Tony, the assassin. The swap in perspectives keeps the story interesting and the plot moving, and Angie's perspective injected something fresh into this (sometimes) tired genre.
The writing style might have been a bit simple at times, but occasionally that's what's needed in a novel like this, because the focus is on the plot. Joanna acted as I believe someone in her position and her background warranted. We tend to forget that each person deals with grief differently, and we project our own judgments and emotions onto characters- and in this case then we wouldn't have a story.
I would have liked to see the author go a bit deeper into character development on Joanna, her family, and some of the other residents of the town, but I suspect that is coming in the future novels. I'm honestly okay with Joanna running for sheriff, because I believe that will bring more interesting stories and believable situations in the future. I also hope that we see Angie again- I really liked her and appreciated her perspective.
If you're looking for a quick little murder mystery set in Arizona with some pursuit and danger baked in, this is it. I had a lot of fun with it, and I'm going to dive right into book two of the series.