Queen of the Night
Sheriff Brandon Walker #4
J.A. Jance

William Morrow / Harper Collins
July 2010/ ISBN 9780061239243
Thriller
Amazon

Reviewed by Bob Walch

A bloody shooting leaving four bodies in an isolated desert location has Dan Pardee, a member of Shadow Wolves, the border patrol unit of the Tohono O’odham Nation, searching for a killer. Pardee must also keep safe the sole survivor of the massacre, the young daughter of one of the victims, as he and Pima County investigator Brian Fellows track a deranged killer.

Meanwhile, Brandon Walker, a retired homicide detective, has volunteered to look into the cold case death of an Arizona State University coed student which has remained unsolved for decades.

These separate cases and a set of characters trying to cope with the present, as well as a few ghosts from the past, make this return to the Walker Family series (this is fourth novel featuring Brandon) a bit of a mishmash some readers won’t want to deal with.

Yes, Jance does fill in the necessary facts for those not familiar with the Walkers and, yes, there’s lots of good stuff about the Tohono O’odham reservation where the author once worked and lived, but…

But, unfortunately, this really is not a captivating novel. If you are one of J.A. Jance’s legion of fans, of course you’ll want to read it. On the other hand, if you can take or leave her work…leave this one!