Desert Shadows

Rating:
Summary: A Great Book
Review: After Desert Wives, I was worried that the Lena Jones series would never again live up to the promise of Desert Noir. I was wrong.
In this book we continue to learn more about Lena's past, through her court assigned anger management sessions and through flashbacks. I don't often cry when I am reading, but some of her "memories" are so poignant! Maybe someday we will learn why her mother shot her, when Lena's memories are of a loving woman.
While all of this is going on, there is also a good mystery taking place, set against the beauty of the desert, and the influx of snowbirds. Gloriana Alden-Taylor, a serious mega-witch (think Marge Shot)is murdered. Suspects abound, from family members to neo-nazis to a serial killer!
This is a great read with a strong female lead, and strong supporting characters, like Jimmy Sissiwan and Dusty. Try it, you'll like it!


Rating:
Summary: terrific private investigative tale
Review: At the Southwest Book Publisher's Expose, Gloriana Alden-Taylor eats salad when the owner-publisher of Patriot's Blood Press starts to feel chest pains. She keels over, foams at the mouth and shortly dies. An autopsy reveals she was poisoned with hemlock sprinkled on her salad; the police arrest Gloriana's employee, Pima Indian Owen Sisiwan for the crime. Earlier that day, group of conference attendees led by Sisiwan went on a field trip where the poisonous plant grew.

Former police officer Lena Jones opened up her own agency after she was wounded on the job and her employee Johnny is Owen's cousin. She knows Owen could never kill a seventy-something year old woman even if she was a racist who treated Owen like a second-class citizen. Her publishing house published books that would appeal to the Aryan nation and they made a lot of money that she used to fix up the house she loved. Lena is determined to find out which of the many people who had a motive to kill Gloriana did the deed.

The protagonist is a person who keeps people at a distance because of the abuses she suffered in foster care, but in spite of the traumas she experienced, Lena is a determined woman who will go the extra mile to see that justice is served. The villainess of DESSERT SHADOW has so many enemies including her employees, her own family and the authors she could not care less about; it is impossible to figure out who the perpetrator is. The juxtaposition of the beauty of the Sonora Desert to the trappings of so-called civilization makes Betty Webb's latest work a terrific private investigative tale.

Harriet Klausner


Rating:
Summary: Lena Jones Returns with a Vengeance
Review: I am a big fan of Betty Webb because she not only offers a great detective story with a strong female protagonist but also embeds various social issues within her stories as well. The most compelling part of the DESERT SHADOWS plot lies not within the mystery itself but within the mysterious background of Lena Jones. I find the hints about her past the most interesting part of the book and I can't wait to find out more!