Desert Lost

September 14, 2009
Webb's sobering sixth mystery to feature PI Lena Jones further explores the abuses of polygamy first exposed in 2003's Desert Wives
. Late one night, while staking out a Scottsdale, Ariz., storage yard in the hope of catching vandals, Lena hears suspicious sounds just outside the yard. She soon discovers the still warm body of a dead woman wearing a long calico dress—an obvious “sister-wife” (i.e., “a woman who shared her man with numerous other women”). With the nearest polygamist compound a five-hour drive away toward Utah, how did the victim wind up in Scottsdale? Lena, who suffered a troubled childhood as an orphan, gets on a trail that leads her to “lost boys,” surplus male teens expelled by the older men who run the polygamist cults. Clear-cut characterizations help a complicated plot flow smoothly. As Webb points out in a note, polygamy still spawns many social ills, despite the recent, well-publicized conviction of Mormon fundamentalist prophet Warren Jeffs.

October 1, 2009
Private eye Lena Jones (Desert Cut, 2008, etc.) sets out to discover who killed an escapee from an Arizona polygamy compound.

Prophet Hiram Shupe, the crazy, epileptic leader of Phoenix's Second Zion community, banishes most male members of his flock at 18, giving the select few who remain dozens of"sister-wives." Lost boys like Jonah wind up on the streets uneducated and unprepared for real life, often reduced to selling their bodies. The women left behind are frequently passed around; Hiram gave his belligerent first wife Opal and a slew of others to his brother Ezra, who now oversees a satellite community in Scottsdale. Sister-wife Celeste escapes but winds up dead. Stumbling across the body while on a stakeout, Lena recognizes the clothes and hair as those of a polygamist and contacts her close friend Rosella, who runs an underground railroad for fleeing sister-wives. Rosella identifies the corpse as Celeste, who helped her escape from Shupe 15 years ago. Hunting for those responsible, Lena must also deal with the reappearance of the only foster parent she ever loved, the disintegration of her romance with a documentary producer and the demented stalker targeting her boyfriend's ex-wife. Sidestepping good sense and ignoring her instinct for self-preservation, she ultimately winds up in a speeding car with Celeste's killer.

Lena, with her nightmares and trust issues, seems as damaged as the women of Second Zion, but even readers who find her unsympathetic will be compelled and shocked by the grim depiction of polygamous life underpinning the mystery.

(COPYRIGHT (2009) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

Starred review from October 1, 2009
When Scottsdale PI Lena Jones ("Desert Cut") helps her friend who rescues runaways from an ultraorthadox Mormon polygamous cult, she finds that the horrors of such an extremist viewpoint are all too real. Her life on the line, Lena tries to bring to justice the head of Second Zion, who endorses spousal abuse, rape, and the forced expulsion of teenage boys who might be rivals for the group's available women. VERDICT Readers will need a strong stomach as Webb lays out the details of polygamy and cult life in this fast-paced sixth series entry that will appeal to readers who enjoy gritty Southwestern mysteries. No one writes quite like she does. [See Prepub Mystery, "LJ" 8/09; this title was highlighted in LJ's Mystery Book Buzz webcast at http: //bit.ly/AV1nw.Ed.]

Copyright 2009 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from October 1, 2009
Webbs Scottsdale PI Lena Jones (Desert Cut, 2008) continues to mix southwestern history with crime in her latest investigation. This time its the polygamist communities in the Utah-Arizona border area that come under her magnifying glass. While running a surveillance operation for a salvage-yard owner, Lena discovers the body of a woman from Second Zion, a notorious polygamist cult in Arizona. Her friend Rosella, a former polygamist sister wife, helps her uncover a shocking secret as she works to rescue the dead womans son. In a society where one man can have many wives, other men will have none. The leaders of the cult banish potential rivals, turning them into lost boys. Such was the fate of the victims son. Meanwhile, Lena receives a surprise visit from her former foster mother, Madeline, renewing memories of her own troubled childhood. A call from another friend sends Lena to Hollywood in pursuit of a stalker. Thats a lot of plot elements, but Webb juggles them effectively, showing how private detectives must move seamlessly from one case to another and back again. This is a complex, exciting entry in a first-class series, and it makes an excellent read-alike for Sue Grafton fans.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)