Survival in the upscale Scottsdale art scene depends on how well a private eye does her footwork... At the age of four, private detective Lena Jones had been found lying unconscious by the side of an Arizona highway, a bullet robbing her of her memories. Now the scarred survivor of a dozen foster homes, Lena has vowed to find the truth about her origins--no matter how terrible that truth might be. In Desert Noir, the first of the Lena Jones mysteries, Lena's quest is interrupted when her friend, heiress Clarice Kobe, is beaten to death in the Western Heart Art Gallery. Lena and her Pima Indian partner Jimmy Sisiwan at first suspect the art dealer's abusive husband, but their investigations soon reveal that domestic violence was hardly the only problem in the victim's troubled life. Clarice, for all her money and beauty, had a dark side; her enemies far outnumbered her friends. Among those who wished her dead are George Haozous, the fiery Apache artist whose graphic work she once banned from her gallery. Another enemy is Dulya Albundo, the daughter of an elderly Hispanic woman whose death was directly attributable to the art dealer's greed. Even Clarice's parents--wealthy land developers whose housing tracts have ravaged the beautiful Sonoran Desert--appear to be oddly untroubled by their daughter's death. Lena's search for Clarice's killer brings violence back into her own life, yet it also brings her closer to the solution of her own mystery--her real identity. Set against the backdrop of the posh Scottsdale, Arizona art scene and the nearby Indian reservations, Desert Noir heralds the debut of a detective as wounded as her clients, a woman battling her owndemons while trying to rescue others from theirs. Compare her to J.A. Jance (Hour of the Hunter 0-380-7107-9 and Kiss of the Bees 0-380-97747-8) and Sinclair Browning (The Last Song Dogs 0-553-57940-1). The perfect setting for private eyes used to be the urban jungle, rife with alienation and secrets. More recently, though, such writers as Tony Hillerman and Nevada Barr have opened up regions of landscape, history, and soul previously unexplored by the detective novel. Webb's summer mystery, a first novel, shows how fertile the desert can be as mystery setting. Desert Noir can be seen as an elegy for the lost West. Noir kicks off its social commentary at the height of the Summer Spectacular Art Walk in Scottsdale. Just when the tourists are being scammed to the max, a scream leads former-cop-turned-PI Lena Jones into her friend Clarice's kitschy art gallery, where Clarice is found stabbed to death. The obvious suspect is Clarice's abusive ex-husband. Lena finds, however, when she takes on the investigation, that any number of people, from all social levels, wanted Clarice dead. Untangling the mystery leads Lena through the social levels of Phoenix, from the tony desert resorts, through the Apache-run casinos and the San Carlos Reservation, to the Sonoran Desert itself. Another mystery strong on atmosphere and insight. Connie Fletcher Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved "A must read for any fan of the modern female PI novel." - Publisher's Weekly "Betty Webb has painted the Scottsdale landscape as clearly as if she had used paint. The feeling for the country, the people, and the fauna of the Arizona metropolis is evident in every word. Webb has done a masterful job in her first novel."  -- The Snooper "Scottsdale and the desert seem to come alive as you read it, sweltering along with the residents. There was a fantaisct tip for desert survival in this book." -- Deadly Pleasures  Before writing mysteries full time, Betty Webb worked as a journalist, interviewing everyone from U.S. presidents and Nobel Prize winners, to the homeless and polygamy runaways. Most of her books are based on the stories she covered as a reporter. Today she's a volunteer at the Phoenix Zoo, and is also a member of the National Federation of Press Women, Mystery Writers of America, the Society of Southwestern Authors, and Women Writing the West. Used Book in Good Condition