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For more than thirty years, the case has
remained stone cold -- the brutal murder of a local Papago
girl, her butchered body found stuffed into a large cooler
that was left on the side of Highway 86. No one ever paid
for the horrific crime ... except, that is, the victim's
loved ones, who suffer to this day.
Brandon Walker, once the sheriff of Pima County, Arizona,
no longer feels he has purpose. A reluctant retiree living
in the long shadow of his wife, Diana Ladd, a successful
author of true-crime books, he is bored with golf, and more
so with life. Salvation, though, comes with an invitation
to join the ranks of The Last Chance, an exclusive nationwide
fraternity of former cops and forensic experts who look into
unsolved murders that have baffled local law enforcement
agencies. And one such case is staring Brandon in the face
with cold, dead, entreating eyes -- a murder investigation
that may have been mishandled by his department when he was
a young lawman.
The trail of a sadistic, calculating, and blood-chillingly
efficient killer soon leads Brandon into a strange world
at the unlikely
border between forensic science and tribal mysticism: a place
where evil hides behind a perfect facade. Now the seeds of
terror sown three decades earlier have bloomed and are bearing
awful fruit. A forgotten homicide in the Arizona desert is
only the beginning of the nightmare that is about to ensnare
a diligent ex-cop and his family, for Brandon Walker is the
only one still alive who can unravel a blood knot of terror
and obsession that will free a dark truth more frightening
than he ever imagined.
A novel that bristles with electrifying intensity and is
alive with the breathtaking atmosphere and rich characterizations
that have become J. A. Jance trademarks, Day of the Dead is a gripping and extraordinary journey into the darkness
-- a welcome return to the shadow world of the sensational
New York Times bestseller Kiss of the Bees -- and the author's
most spellbinding and powerfully resonant thriller to date.
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