Desert Shadows (Lena Jones Mysteries) - Hardcover

Webb, Betty

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 159058113X ISBN 13: 9781590581131

Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press, 2004

Synopsis

Some books have money written all over them. Books like Recreational Explosives and How to Build Them. Or Finding Your Patriot Ancestors Through DNA Testing. Or Losing America. Yes, Patriot's Blood Press has gone racist, making money from books that play into the worst elements of society and its darkest behaviors. It's no surprise there are plenty of suspects when Patriot's Blood publisher Gloriana Alden-Taylor is poisoned, but the hammer falls on just one: Owen Sisiwan, a Pima Indian. Scottsdale PI Lena Jones enlists in Owen's defense. To her horror, Lena finds herself rubbing elbows not just with greedy Gloriana's family and employees, but with disgruntled authors and extremists of all sorts.

Lena, a survivor of a childhood spent in foster care, is further pained by her sessions with a therapist for anger management. Soon her flashbacks to the time just before her mother shot her four-year-old self accelerate and move her closer to the mystery of her own identity.

About this title

About the Author:

As a journalist, Betty Webb interviewed U.S. presidents, astronauts, and Nobel Prize winners, as well as the homeless, dying, and polygamy runaways. The dark Lena Jones mysteries are based on stories she covered as a reporter. Betty's humorous Gunn Zoo series debuted with the critically acclaimed The Anteater of Death, followed by The Koala of Death. A book reviewer at Mystery Scene Magazine, Betty is a member of National Federation of Press Women, Mystery Writers of America, and the National Organization of Zoo Keepers. www.bettywebb-zoomystery.com

From Publishers Weekly:

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 War hero." 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.
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About this edition

• Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 159058113X
• ISBN 13: 9781590581131
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 243