Concrete Desert (David Mapstone Mysteries, 1) - Softcover

Talton, Jon

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1590583779 ISBN 13: 9781590583777

Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press, 2011

Synopsis

"Talton's summer mystery, a first novel, shows how fertile the desert can be as a mystery setting... A stunning debut." ―Booklist STARRED review

Having recently lost his job as a history professor, David Mapstone returns to his boyhood home of Phoenix, Arizona, to find the city dramatically changed. It's now a haven for wealthy retirees and a seasonal retreat for West Coast "sophisticates," but pockets of his earlier life―some welcome, some not―remain. Mapstone eagerly accepts a temporary job from his old friend, Maricopa County Chief Deputy Mike Peralta: look into still-open cases and see if he can close any. He is settling into his new job when his college sweetheart appears at his door one evening. True to his memory of her, she is there because she wants something. Her sister is missing, and she wants Mapstone to look for her.

Mapstone's search for the missing woman is quickly resolved when her body is discovered in the desert, but he is stunned to find the dead sister in circumstances identical to a sensational 40-year-old unsolved murder. Mapstone's dogged investigation of both murders bridges the chasm of clashing cultures, meshing his own long-ago memories with the tangled doings of newcomers and their acolytes, young women eager to share the lifestyle of tainted wealth, drugs, and careless violence.

About this title

About the Author:

Jon Talton is a fourth-generation Arizonan, the author of 12 novels, and a former columnist for the Arizona Republic. Talton now lives in Seattle, where he is the economics columnist for the Seattle Times and writes the blog Rogue Columnist.

From Publishers Weekly:

One good thing you can say about this pedestrian-plotted, clich‚-ridden debut is that the narrator, Phoenix-born cop turned college history teacher David Mapstone, knows an interesting historical anecdote when he hears one. Tales of the rise of Phoenix, Ariz., from provincial city (with a small-town feel) to blighted metropolis are the best parts of the book. Unfortunately, Talton's familiarity with the city's history is no compensation for his over-familiarity with the conventions of the mystery novel. After being denied tenure for his resistance to "non-linearity," Mapstone returns to the Phoenix force as a consultant on long-unsolved cases. His latest assignment is the 40-year-old discovery of a young woman strangled in the desert. Her death matches a series of such murders that occurred at the time. Legend has it these were the work of the unseen, unapprehended "Creeper," whose nefarious deeds ceased as mysteriously as they began. Was the woman a victim of Phoenix's first serial killer? Mapstone's investigation is interrupted by the appearance of an old flame, his first true love. She appeals to him to help find her sister, who has disappeared. Need we add that the two cases wend their way to homicide? Talton is a competent writer. His idea of a historian-detective investigating old cases is an excellent one, and his historical anecdotes are genuinely interesting. But the plotting and the characters are just too historical. (July 9)Forecast: Dry.

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About this edition

• Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 1590583779
• ISBN 13: 9781590583777
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 202