Flower In The Desert (Joshua Croft Mystery) - Softcover

Walter Satterthwait

3.69

87 ratings by Goodreads

9780373261345: Flower In The Desert (Joshua Croft Mystery)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0373261349 ISBN 13: 9780373261345

Publisher: Worldwide Library, 1993

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Santa Fe private investigator Josh Croft is hired to find Melissa Alonzo, the former wife of a famous actor, and when the FBI and Salvadoran assassins enter the picture, things get complicated--and deadly. Reprint.

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From Publishers Weekly:

After accusing TV heartthrob Roy Alonzo of molesting their daughter, his ex-wife Melissa vanishes, along with the child. In Satterthwait's ( At Ease with the Dead ) vibrant latest mystery, quick-witted and thoughtful Santa Fe PI Joshua Croft agrees when Alonzo's mobster uncle asks him to find the pair and investigate the charges. Croft learns that Melissa's sister was tortured and killed after the disappearance, and that a friend of hers has also gone missing. Seeking information from local authorities, Croft is told that the FBI, in the person of a smarmy agent named Stamworth, is impeding their investigation. The discovery of another torture and murder victim leads Croft to the Sanctuary movement for illegal aliens, the Underground Railroad (a refuge for battered wives and children) and to a brush with El Salvador's death squads. As he deals with unscrupulous characters on both sides of the law, Croft learns something about Melissa and Roy's sex life that makes finding mother and daughter imperative. Satterthwait offers local color, detail and intriguing action along with an appealingly sensitive, slightly cynical series hero.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews:

Santa Fe's tenacious, even-tempered p.i. Joshua Croft is hired by VIP Norman Montoya to find Melissa Alonzo and her small daughter Wynona. Melissa, ex-wife of Montoya's movie-star nephew Roy, has disappeared in the wake of a nasty custody case in which she'd accused Roy of child abuse. The judge's decision to grant her ex- husband unsupervised visiting rights has sent Melissa into a protective network called Underground Railroad. Croft must also explore her connections to Sanctuary, a group fighting repression in Salvador. Melissa had recently made an unexpectedly short visit there and may have become the quarry of a less benign searcher--a theory lent weight by the murder of her sister Cathryn. It all ends in a tense confrontation joined by Croft's computer-whiz partner Rita Mondragon, newly freed from her wheelchair (At Ease With the Dead, 1990, etc.). The author probes a currently trendy subject with sensitivity; vivid characters; suspenseful plotting; and some surprises reserved for the windup--in another satisfying Joshua Croft adventure. -- Copyright �1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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