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DESERT RUN
by Betty Webb
Poisoned Pen Press, March 2006
380 pages
$24.95
ISBN: 1590582349


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

Lena Jones has just begun to trust people again, when she is hit with a double whammy. Her partner, Jimmy Sisiwan, is leaving Desert Investigations for a job at Sun Microsystems because his social climbing wife-to-be doesn't like him working at a job with no prestige. And her mentor from the Scottsdale police department doesn't like the new chief, so he has resigned and is moving back to Brooklyn.

Meanwhile, in her fourth adventure, Lena is continuing to work at what she does so well. She has a job as security supervisor for a documentary filmmaker who is shooting a movie about the Word War II prison camp that stood in the vicinity of Scottsdale.

On Christmas Eve in 1944, 28 prisoners escaped from the internment facility. Twenty-five were eventually recaptured, but three escaped. The instigator of the escape, U-boat captain Erik Ernst, is still alive, aged 93, and is helping to make the film.

But someone murders Ernst and his Ethiopian caregiver is arrested. He asks Lena to clear his name, and she agrees to try to find the truth. In order to solve the crime, Lena goes back to the night of the escape and starts to probe the lives of the three uncaught escapees. She finds that a local farm family was found dead on Christmas night. The surviving son was found not guilty at trial, but the murder was never solved. Is the solution tied to the escape? Lena must dig into the past to find out.

I had never bothered to read the books in this series, but since all I had been hearing were raves, I decided to try them. I started with the first, DESERT NOIR, then, in quick succession read DESERT WIVES and DESERT SHADOWS within only a few weeks before reading DESERT RUN. When one reads the books in a series so closely together, discrepancies and repetitions are more easily discerned. There were none in this series. It is elegantly written and edited, and well worth seeking out. Poisoned Pen Press puts out a quality product and this is no exception.

Reviewed by Barbara Franchi, January 2006

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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