More Reviews of Desert Cut
“Betty Webb is a smart, sharp and savvy writer whose sensational Lena Jones series entertains, enlightens and educates. Webb's best yet, DESERT CUT is a harrowing, gut-wrenching read; thought-provoking and spiked with social outrage, it will remain with you a long time.
JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING,
Edgar finalist and author of
ALL MORTAL FLESH
"Starred Review. This is a first-rate plot that mixes the history of Geronimo’s war with contemporary immigration issues and contrasts the harsh conditions of border life with Hollywood glitz."
BOOKLIST
"Betty Webb provides another strong whodunit with her usual thought provoking underlying social message that America is only as strong as our weakest."
THE MYSTERY GAZETTE
Desert Run
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY (January 23, 2006)
"At the start of Webb's multifaceted,
fast-paced fourth Lena Jones mystery (after 2004's Desert Shadows), the scrappy
workaholic PI is supervising security for filmmaker Warren Quinn, who's shooting
a documentary about the escape of German POW's from a prison camp in Scottsdale,
Arizona, in 1944. When someone murders the leader of the escapees, arrogant,
disagreeable Erik Ernst, now 91 and retired in Scottsdale, suspicion falls
on the former U-boat commander's Ethiopian immigrant care-giver, Rada Tesema...
Webb combines evocative descriptions of place with fine historical research
in a plot packed with twists."
Release date: March 21, 2006
Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press, Scottsdale, Arizona
Hardcover: $24.95
If your local bookstore does not stock Desert Run, you may order directly from the publisher at 1-800-421-3976 or online at www.poisonedpenpress.com.
Desert Shadows: Publishing
Can Be Murder
From PUBLISHERS WEEKLY (June 21, 2004)
"Loyalty, compassion and a sharp sense of humor help Arizona PI Lena Jones
survive as she continues to struggle with her troubled past in Webb's third
socially conscious, thought-provoking mystery (after 2003's Desert Wives).
When Gloriana Alden-Taylor, the 75-year-old patrician founder of controversial
Patriot's Blood Press, is fatally poisoned at the banquet held at the
annual Southwest Book Publisher's Expo (SOBOP), Lena's Pima Indian partner,
Jimmy Sisiwan, enlists Lena's aid in trying to prove the innocence of
the chief suspect, Jimmy's cousin Owen, "a Bronze Star-winning Afghan
Warhero." Lena
soon discovers that many people had the opportunity to slip deadly water
hemlock into the victim's salad, ranging from the Reverend Melvin Giblin,
who happens to have been a former foster father of Jones, to the fanatical
racist author Randall Ott and his equally vicious lady friend.
As the suspense builds, the author touches on such issues as consolidation
in the book industry, the plight of foster children, mother-daughter relationships,
animal rescue programs and more. The glorious Southwest landscape once again
provides the perfect setting for Webb's courageous heroine."
BOOKLIST - (July 2004)
At the ripe old age of 76, Gloriana [Alden-Taylor], doyenne of Scottsdale,
Arizona, high society, was murdered during a reception at a book exposition,
just as her imprint, Patriot's Blood Press, was starting to earn acclaim
in Southwest publishing. To Lena Jones, an ex-cop turned private eye, the
accused -- Owen Sisiwan, an Afghanistan war vet to worked for Gloriana
doing odd jobs to help support his family -- seems an unlikely suspect.
As Lena starts digging into the circumstances surrounding Gloriana's murder,
a slew of potential suspects emerge, opening up an Agatha Christie-like
whodunit replete with greedy relatives, extremist politicians, and hate
groups. Simultaneous with this investigation, Lena faces her own past as
she reluctantly uncovers the mystery behind her nightmares. This third
in Webb's series makes good use of both tony Scottsdale and the small-press
publishing scene. Lena makes a refreshing heroine; being raised by nine
different foster homes gives her unusual depth. Solid series fare.
-Mary Frances Wilkens
Desert Wives: Polygamy can be murder
Lena Jones, the Scottsdale, Arizona detective first introduced in the critically
acclaimed Desert Noir, helps Rebecca, a thirteen-year-old girl escape from
Purity, one of Arizona's notorious polygamy compounds. But while leading
Rebecca up a desert canyon away from the compound, she stumbles across the
body of Prophet Solomon, the man the little girl was being forced to marry.
Rebecca's mother is arrested for the Prophet's murder, and Lena must return
to Purity to find the real murderer. The only way Lena can do this, though,
is by disguising herself as a new "sister wife," and pretending
to be a polygamist herself.
Upon taking up residence in Purity, Lena discovers that men with twenty-five
wives - some of them as young as thirteen, are not uncommon; and that young
girls and women are commonly treated as little more than breeding animals.
But something else Lena discovers puts her own life in danger.
Someone is willing to kill in order to retain Purity's most shocking secret.
Desert Wives sheds light on Arizona’s and Utah’s most peculiar
traditions: the approximately 55,000 polygamists who today inhabit the wilderness
area known as the Arizona Strip, a narrow portion of desert land on both sides
of the Arizona/Utah border.
From PUBLISHERS WEEKLY (January 2003)
"Dark humor and thrilling action inform Webb's second Lena Jones mystery,
a searing expose' of the abuses of contemporary polygamy... The beauty of the
Southwestern backdrop belies the harshness of life, the corrupt officials,
brutal men and frightened women depicted in this arresting novel briming with
moral outrage... The recent conviction of polygamist Tom Green has helped bring
this issue to national attention. In an author's note, Webb, an Arizona journalist,
tells readers what they can do to overcome governmental apathy. If the nation
isn't too absorbed in fighting religious tyranny abroad, this book could do
for polygamy what 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' did for slavery."
Desert Noir: A Lena Jones mystery
Survival in the upscale Scottsdale art scene depends on how well a private eye does her footwork.
At the age of four, private detective Lena Jones had been found lying unconscious
by the side of an Arizona highway, a bullet robbing her of her memories.
Now the scarred survivor of a dozen foster homes, Lena has vowed to find
out the truth about her origins, no matter how terrible that truth might
be.
In Desert Noir, the first of the Lena Jones mysteries, Lena's quest is interrupted
when her friend, heiress Clarice Kobe, is beaten to death in the Western
Heart Art Gallery during Scottsdale's famous annual Summer Spectacular Art
Walk. Lena and her Pima Indian partner Jimmy Sisiwan at first suspect the
art dealer's abusive husband, but their investigations soon reveal that domestic
violence was hardly the only problem in the victim's troubled life.
Clarice, for all her money and beauty, had a dark side: her enemies far outnumbered
her friends. Among those who wished her dead are George Haozous, the fiery
Apache artist whose graphic work she once banned from her gallery. Another
enemy is Dulya Albundo, the daughter of an elderly Hispanic woman whose death
was directly attributable to the art dealer's greed. Even Clarice's parents,
wealthy land developers whose housing tracts have ravaged the beautiful Sonoran
Desert, appear to be oddly untroubled by their daughter's death.
Lena's search for Clarice's killer brings violence back into her own life,
yet it also brings her closer to the solution of her own mystery - her real
identity.
Set against the backdrop of the posh Scottsdale, Arizona art scene and the
nearby Indian reservations, Desert Noir heralds the debut of a detective
as wounded as her clients, a woman battling her own demons while trying to
rescue others from theirs.
From PUBLISHERS WEEKLY (May 2001)
"High accomplished debut of what promises to be an exciting new series..."
"A fully realized picture of Arizona, from barrios to mountaintop mansions, with the rich backdrop of Indian legend and desert facing erosion by urban sprawl..."
"The writing is solid and fun..."
"A must read for any fan of the modern PI novel."
*10% of the author's proceeds from DESERT NOIR will be donated to the Lura Turner Home, a Phoenix residence for brain-damaged adults, and children and young adults with Downs' syndrome.
From The New York Times:
"If Betty Webb had gone undercover and written DESERT WIVES as a piece
of investigative journalism, she'd probably be up for a Pulitzer... The factual
details - supported by research cited in an afterward - are eye-popping."