This is the sixth book by Betty Webb about Lena Jones PI in Scottsdale Arizona. The setting is a vital aspect of these stories and a fascinating one it is too. The growing city of Phoenix is almost another character in the tale especially as it increases and changes from book to book.
The topic here is historical - in the Second World War German POWs were kept in a camp in Arizona and, in 1944, some of them escaped through a tunnel. It sounds familiar doesn’t it - just the opposite side doing it! Lena is organising security for the film crew that is making a documentary about this event and, as a result, she finds the body of a participant - the surviving escapee Kapitan Zur See Erik Ernst, an unpleasant 90 year old who is in a wheelchair. She investigates the murder because she does not think the man arrested for the crime committed it. The seeds of the murder obviously lie in the past so Lena tries to trace the escape of 1944. The gradual build up of Ernst’s story and those of the other men in the prison camp is extremely well done. Lena soon finds a case of other horrific deaths in the past which connects to the tale of the escapees.
Lena is indomitable despite her difficult even horrific childhood and, therefore, her problems with relationships. Her own story is inter-cut with her discoveries about the German escape and the history of the people in the area since the 1940s. The book is free standing - there is no need to have read the preceding adventures to understand this one.
-----------------------
Jennifer S. Palmer
The series began with Desert Noir and each of the successive books has Desert in the title.