Blessing of the Lost Girls

By. J.A. Jance

Genre: Fiction/Murder Mystery/Thriller

Pages (print): 328

Via: Library

Rodeos. Barrel racing. A serial killer. A heroine named Hazel.

A heroine named Hazel? Say what? you say.

Yo! Her Momness and I will get to that shortly. So kindly keep your hair on, Cookie. First a little back story:

I was waiting outside The Book Place the other day with the patience of Job while Mom was inside, skipping merrily through the stacks looking for something to nab. She skidded to a halt in front of the Lucky Day shelf. For you young whippersnappers, this is an actual, physical shelf near the checkout where lots of the latest releases live. So if you find one that’s available for checkout it’s like, “Whoa Nellie*! It’s my Luck Day!” (*Mom Speak for “Whoa, Nellie.” Super excited.)

And that’s where She Who Must Be Obeyed – sometimes – found Blessings of the Lost Girls. Never heard of J.A. Jance before. Never head of “A Brady and Walker Family Novel.” Just grabbed it sight unseen.

Got it home. Dove in. Didn’t put it down until one of us almost missed dinner. I had to *remind* Mom what time it was. More than once. It’s that absorbing. Here’s the 4-1-1:

The 4-1-1

“The lost girls” is Sheriff Joanna Brady’s brainchild. The no-nonsense sheriff of Cochise County, Arizona, Brady explains her “lost girls” are “girls in their teens or young women in their twenties who make bad choices and end up missing, dead, or both.” And Brady should know. As sheriff, she makes it a point to be in attendance at the scene of every homicide that occurs inside her jurisdiction. There have been too many. And too many unsolved cases.

Dan Pardee is assigned to a cold case involving a Native American girl, Rosa Rios, who went missing three years ago. He teams up with Brady. Half Anglo and half Apache, Pardee is a field officer ”for a newly formed branch of the U.S. government called the Missing and Murdered Indigenous People Tak Force, or MIP, for short.” Its main purpose is to “investigate and put right how law enforcement agencies all over the country had dealt with both solved and unsolved cases involving the deaths and disappearances of Native American victims.”

It’s heartbreaking. And bewildering.

Formerly with the Shadow Wolves, “a Border Patrol unit made up entirely of Native American officers,” Pardee is a skilled tracker, an experienced horsemen and expert investigator. He’s also fast friends with Pima County Sheriff Brian Fellows. A paraplegic and fellow vet, Fellows ran for sheriff and won after his predecessor was nailed on corruption charges.

Rosa Rios is a former barrel racing queen. She disappeared from a Tucson bar one Saturday night over Rodeo Weekend. She was later found dead. Others are girls like victim #2, Annika Wallace, “another throwaway girl who could disappear without a trace and no one would be the wiser.”

Pardee steps into the cold case like a man on a mission. And he is. His own mother was one of the “lost girls.”

Jennifer “Jenny” Brady is Sheriff Brady’s daughter. Jenny is a criminal justice major at the University of Northern Arizona in Flagstaff. She’s the first to make a connection between… Oh, wait. You’ll have to read the book to get that.

There’s also Charles Milton. This guy makes pond scum look good. Milton seems to be an unassuming retired bachelor and RVer who keeps to himself. He’s also a stone-cold serial killer. And no, that’s not a spoiler. You find that out in Chapter 1.

Predator-like, Milton bounces from rodeo to rodeo in search of his next victim, “a solo girl, preferably one who was more than slightly tipsy and… and on the small side.” (Kimber: Can I bite him? Can I? Can I? Mom: Yes! Get in some extra chomps for me, too!)

Taut and Tight

Taut as a piano wire, the story reeled us in from chapter 1 and didn’t let go until the final page. Expertly written and briskly paced, the story is told is if you’re a fly on the wall listening/looking in on the conversations and investigating and such. As the reader, you know right away who the killer is. But none of the characters do. So you join them as they try to piece together the who, what, when, where, why, and how of what happened in a desperate race against time to find the suspect before he strikes again.

Bonus points:

• This book is mostly clean.
• It avoids gruesome details of the killings, providing just enough info. to let readers connect the dots themselves.
• Skillfully interwoven throughout the story are tidbits of Native American history, culture, language and legends. So, Whoa, Nellie!

Whoa Nellie Encore

It’s gripping. Chilling. And heart-wrenching. It’s also more than a murder mystery/thriller. A lot more. So even though we’d never heard of J.A. Jance before checking out this book, you can bet we’ll keep an eye out for more of her work now! Like, Whoa, Nellie again!

“Years before he had come home from a war that had never really ended. Tonight he was a soldier returning from a war he had won.”

Speaking of which – sort of – you may think this book is about a federal investigator dude who crosses paths with Sheriff Brady as he traces the path of a ruthless serial killer across the Southwest. You may also think this book is about the MIP task force and its mission. Or that it’s about strong females who won’t take “No” for an answer. Like Sheriff Brady. Her daughter Jennifer. Or MIP chief Anna Mae. You may never look at desert blooms quite the same way again after reading this book. (The title makes sense later.)

And you’d be right.

But you’d also be wrong.

Hazel the Heroine

Is your hair still on, Cupcake? Good. Cuz as The Kimster loves to point out, the real heroine in this book is Hazel. She’s a mini poodle who can sniff out bad dudes a mile away. Including the major creepazoid who lives right next to retiree Melody Baxter in an out-of-the-way RV park in Arizona. And believe you me, Hazel’s like, Totally PAWsome. Brilliant. And never wrong.

Kinda reminds me of another sweet, furry face we all know and love… Whoa, Nellie!

Our Rating: 4.5