Queen of the Night (Walker Family Mysteries)

I have read nearly all her books. They are great reading and would recommend this author to anyone who likes a good detective story. J. A. Janice is a good author in selecting books to read. I hope others enjoy her books as much as I do.

I like this series but there is too much repetition. She retells the plot of the earlier books not once but several times. I found myself skimming or skipping over those parts to get back to the story.

Too much jumping around from character to character for me to keep them straight, even by the end. Why it's a "Walker Family Mystery" when Brandon Walker plays such an insignificant part, I can't figure out. I can only assume it was to tie up loose ends that were left in a prequel. Otherwise the side story of finding out who murdered a college student back in the late 50s could have been completely left out. There was no point to it, and the "break" needed to solve it was dealt with in one page.

No mystery. No suspense. No connection to any of the characters. I finished it because the library is closed for the 4th of July weekend and I had nothing else to read.

Perhaps most of my problem with the book comes from reading it is in the style of Hillerman, a writer I cannot read. I enjoy her other series, but not this one.

The Indian people around Tucson have an annual tradition where they get together one night to celebrate the annual flowering of the Queen of the Night flower which only blooms for twelve hours, always at night. Most go to the local cultural center, where there is a festival celebrating the night and the traditional way of life.

But this year, as an anniversary surprise, Jack Tennent has planned a surprise picnic for his wife, Abigail. He has set up a meal near a towering Queen of the Night plant out in the country, a symbolic celebration to mark their love. They are disappointed when a local couple calls and says they are planning to drop by. The next thing is a fusillade of bullets, and all four people are killed.

There are several investigators that work on the case. Brandon Walker is a retired homicide detective, who now works on cold cases. His wife, novelist Diana Ladd and he are drawn to the case. Brain Fellows is the current investigator working the case, and there is also Dan Pardee, a war hero who now works in the Shadow Wolves, a border patrol unit. All of these men work the case, determining who were the main targets and what in their pasts have led to this event.

J.A. Jance has written a suspense novel that will have readers on the edge of their chairs. She skillfully intertwines this case with one from forty years ago that Brandon is also working. The reader learns of family relationships and much about the traditions of the Tohono O'odham people. Jance has written 41 other suspense novels and is at the height of her craft. In addition to this series, the Walker Famly Mysteries, she has series named Joanna Brady Mysteries, J.P. Beaumont Mysteries and Ali Reynolds mysteries. This book is recommended for mystery readers.

I hated the beginning of this book - choppy writing, too many characters introduced too fast, cliches ("Now that Geet knew it was curtains for him...."), too much overly dramatic writing with not enough actual suspense. Too much explaining what was happening instead of working it into the story. Nope, this one definitely wasn't my kind of book even though I'm a fan of mysteries.

If I weren't reading it for a book discussion group, an odd book to choose, I probably would have quit in the first 30 pages. I did slog through, though, and in the end, it was okay but no better than that.

I did enjoy reading about the Tucson setting and about the Tohono O'odham Nation, I did enjoy some of the characters, although perhaps it says something that my favorite character was a dog. In the future, I'll avoid this author and stick to those authors whose writing I enjoy more and take chances on new authors. Hey, you don't know if you don't try, and I gave this one a try.

Okay, okay, there are a lot of characters buzzing around in this book, but anyone who has read the entire Walker/Bees series will already know most of them, and those who've followed them closely will also follow this story without confusion. However, DON'T expect to fully enjoy or appreciate this book unless you've already read the others in the Walker series, because much of the the narrative is spent introducing new readers to a rather convoluted series of family/tribal relationships. For the reviewer who questioned the Sully & June thread, I believe that it served merely to keep active the presence of the TLC (The Last Chance) organization, for its potential reappearance in future installations. All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed this book, but have rated it four rather than five stars due to the somewhat predictable ending, which was clearly designed to lead into future adventures with the protagonists.

A tortured nightmare of a book, heavy on evil and general misfortune (the evil to good ratio was significantly out of whack); short on an actual plot or a pleasing rhythm. The individual snippets of information weren't without interest but they were overshadowed by the overall atmosphere of despair. Meanwhile, the flow was disjointed and the plot seemed forced and thin. I love Tony Hillerman; yet, if patterning this story after his style was the goal, it was a distant miss. I've read and enjoyed other JA Jance books.

The Walker family continues to grow as another mystical T'onono O'odham waif becomes tragically available. Lots of death and mayhem as the serial killer is tracked down and apprehended. Another interesting entry in this good series

I loved all of Tony Hillerman's books. He brought the Navajo culture and the American Southwest alive and real for the reader. I felt like I could actually find Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee driving around Arizona and New Mexico any time I was in that part of the country. I did not feel this way about any of the characters in this book. The plot was somewhat convoluted and the additional subplot of the cold case seemed absolutely unnecessary. While it gets "solved" it seems so pointless to have even been included. It had no bearing on the main characters or the main murder plot. This is the first book I've read by this author, and I suspect it will be the only one.

A number of reviewers have compared this book to those by Tony Hillerman. I read a couple of Hillerman's books many years ago, and though everyone gushes about how well he portrays Navajo culture, etc., I myself was turned off by the inordinate amount of carnage in each, and thus have read no more since. As the body count rose in this book, I wondered if I'd picked up a Hillerman book by mistake. No, but the book was, I believe, dedicated to him, so to me it's pretty obvious that Jance was trying to imitate him, not only in the portrayal of Indian culture, in this case that of the Tohono O'odham tribe, but also in the degree of bloodshed. I have mixed feelings about this book.

The positive:
1. It is a fascinating story.
2. Having lived in Tucson for several years, I enjoyed the setting.
3. The character studies were for the most part very interesting.

The negative:
1. Way too much bloodshed, too many victims. What's more, except for the bitchy wife, they were innocent victims, killed under tragic circumstances. I prefer stories is which the victim in some way "deserved" death.
2. The murder of the lesbian student is totally irrelevant to the story.
3. The style of writing is fractured. Granted, there was a lot to cover, but the story would have been more readable if the author had stayed with each scene through several pages, instead of jumping back and forth between unrelated scenes every page or so. I know it's a style some writers like to follow, but it isn't the best. It also seems to have been written too quickly, with certain inconsistencies in the details. For example, at one point it says that the perp's mother had never met his wife; later a scene is described, the perp's graduation, in which his mother comes up to him while he is standing with his wife.

Also, we learn who the perp is early on. The suspense lies in whether or not he'll get caught, and how many more people he will kill. This may be a plus or minus depending on one's tastes, but I prefer murder mysteries where the perp is part of the mystery- i.e., a "whodunnit."

It was a gripping story, and I had a hard time putting it down. Afterwards, though, I felt defiled, as if I had been splattered by some of the blood. I have to keep reminding myself, "It's fiction! None of those characters have ever lived or died."

I have read all the Joanna Brady books and really enjoyed them but I found this one to be too many characters and hard to keep track of them all. The Indian lore is interesting but also too many details that needed more development. Plus, toward the end noticed a big chunk of text repeated in two different sections--oops!! I heard Ms Jance speak recently and she said she was doing two books a year. Maybe time to slow down?

In 1959, ASU coed June Lennox travels with Sully from the Tempe, Arizona campus to Southern California for spring break. She never returns to school as she is left dead in the desert.

In 2009 in Tucson, retired Pima County homicide detective Brandon Walker visits his dying pal former Pinal County detective "Geet" Farrell at the hospice; they worked a serial killer case together back in 1975. Geet got Brandon a job with TLC (The Last Chance) entity that works cold cases. Hs current case is the homicide of June Lennox.

At the same time, Brandon's wife Diana Ladd Walker still struggles with "visits" from the dead in her nightmarish past. They are Andrew Carlisle who tried to rape her, her late odious first husband Garrison Ladd III who set her up to be raped, and serial killer Mitch Johnson who kidnapped her adopted daughter Lani. At the same time, Pima County Homicide Detective Brian Fellows and Border Patrol agent Dan Pardee track a killer on the land of the desert people, the Tohono O'odham.

The latest extended Walker Family mystery (see Hour of the Hunter and Kiss of the Dead) is a great entry as J.A. Jance deftly balances her myriad of leads, their cases, the present day culture of the People and the geography. The multiple plots connect by the Walkers and company who diligently work at what they do best. Ms. Jance is at her best with this terrific mystery that blends past and present Tucson, Southern California and the Tohono O'odham Nation into a powerful thriller.

Harriet Klausner

I love reading stories about good people. J.A. Jance writes stories about good people making the extra effort to be kind, loving, and strongly opposing evil. The problem I had with this book was that there were a lot of different characters and I had trouble keeping track of them. Most of them were related to the story, but not all were needed. Since I checked this book out of the library, the x-ray system was not available to me.

This 4th in the Sheriff Walker series is a convoluted, authentic cliffhanger by an author with personal experience with the people she's writing about. If I had known, I should have started with book 1 of the series, "Hour of the Hunter". I advise you to start there; it'll make the complicated background a lot easier to understand.

I liked this book because it continues the series which includes information on the Southwest. I haven't checked to be sure the information on the flowers is correct, but usually information in the books that are written are based on fact.

A good series by the author, sympathetic, believable characters and plot, but I have to write about the audiobook here, and the incredibly terrible narration of Greg Itzin ruins the story. Forget about listening to it, and buy the book.

A good series by the author, sympathetic, believable characters and plot, but I have to write about the audiobook here, and the incredibly terrible narration of Greg Itzin ruins the story. Forget about listening to it, and buy the book.

I was so disappointed in this book. It was confusing, unfocused and boring. I am sorry to say that I did not finish it. i have read all of Jance's books and liked them all, but this is a waste of time.