Saddlebag Dispatches—Winter 2023

Page 120

120

SADDLEBAG DISPATCHES

I may not have been born in Arizona, but the place lives in my mind, heart, and imagination....”

oman W est W a

of the

A Conversation with Cochise County Native,

New York Times Bestselling Author J.A. Jance.

T

oday’s Western Sheriffs (and the Eastern ones, too) ride into town in trucks in the modern west or a tricked out squad car with a computer at the dashboard. However, just as in the old days, a gun rests on the hip with a star pinned to the shirt. In real life as in J.A. Jance’s novels that Sheriff may well be a woman. In 2022, there were sixty female Sheriffs on duty in the United States.

Although Jance’s books are most often grouped in the “mystery” section of libraries and bookstores, I say, by virtue of her heroine Joanna Brady and Jance’s own immersion in the western landscape and culture exhibited in the books, Jance is definitely a western author. Protagonist Brady is the daughter of a sheriff. Brady becomes sheriff after the murder of her sheriff husband, and after she solves that, at the same time clearing her husband’s name

JOAN LEOTTA


Turn static files into dynamic content formats.

Create a flipbook
Issuu converts static files into: digital portfolios, online yearbooks, online catalogs, digital photo albums and more. Sign up and create your flipbook.
Saddlebag Dispatches—Winter 2023 by Oghma Communications - Issuu