AUTHOR: Webb, BettyTITLE: Desert NoirDATE READ: 02/05/15RATING: 4.5/B+GENRE/PUB DATE/PUBLISHER/# OF PGS Crime Fiction/2001/Poisoned Pen Press/252 pgs SERIES/STAND-ALONE: #1 in the Lena Jones serisTIME/PLACE: Scottsdale, AZ/presentFIRST LINES: I was admiring the view from my second story window wh...
Things are never easy for Scottsdale private eye Lena Jones. Her partner in Desert Investigations, Jimmy Siswan, is leaving for an upscale wife and a job at Sun Microsystems. Her old Captain at the Scottsdale PD is off home to Brooklyn. She's doing security for Warren Quinn, director of a documen...
Taking up approximately five acres, the area was surrounded by tall eucalyptus trees, and every time visitors opened the Aboriginal art-decorated gate the music of a didgeridoo wafted from speakers hidden among their branches. The Aussie animals lived in large, separate enclosures that mimicked t...
my fellow zookeeper informed me. Brattholt was a combined hotel and farm near Vik, a tiny seaside community southeast of Reykjavik where she and Ragnar boarded their horses. When not slapping Drunk Elvis around, Ragnar was the soul of generosity, and had graciously offered to lend me his gelding ...
I know I am. I’ll die without ever seeing Ali again, but that’ll be okay as long as they let her go. I’m going to keep saying I did it did it did it as long as it takes because nothing matters anymore without Ali. As long as I know she’s all right and they let her go I’ll let anything happen to m...
Given the speed of his retreat, he certainly hadn’t lingered to pick anything up. He might have returned earlier this morning to retrieve them, but I doubted it. Abandoning my fruitless search, I walked back along the river toward the Lazy M. It was time for a heart-to-heart with Selma Mann...
He pressed his nose against it, smelled her Evening in Paris perfume and the lingering scents of thousands of meals. Then he folded it carefully and tucked it into his saddlebag. Memories safely stowed, he went back into the living room and saluted the autographed picture of John Wayne. He starte...
CALL ME!I stuffed the note into my pocket and limped inside, where I saw that DJ Bonz had already piddled on the carpet. After spending the next few minutes sponging up, I took him for his regular walk, albeit slowly. Everything hurt, especially my bruised heel and bitten arm. All I wanted to do ...