That an abused foster child with a horrific past becomes a smart, fearless private investigator typifies the spunk and mysterious charm of the Lena Jones mystery series by Betty Webb (Desert Noir).
In the latest entry, Desert Vengeance, the indefatigable Jones is impelled to investigate the grisly murder of the man--just released from prison--who abused her when she was nine, as well as the murder of his enabling wife. The case is complicated not only by the moral ambivalence of the crime--Jones had hatched her own revenge plot before someone else acted--but also by the sheer number of victims traumatized by the same man. Because so many had a motive and the means to commit murder, Jones must navigate a tangled web of past wrongs and pursue her own instincts toward some hazy dawning of justice.
Webb's pithy first-person narration cuts to the chase without a lot of filler, making Desert Vengeance a pleasure to read. Though lean and mean, the prose carries enough quirk and nuance to convey the protagonist's distinct, cheeky voice. Lena Jones is tough yet vulnerable, irreverent and sarcastic, yet dead serious at times. She's the flawed hero one can't help but love. Webb depicts her evenhandedly in terms of balanced characterization, and in relating her to the setting. The Arizona desert and its touristy towns offer up a strange bonanza of desert tropes, and Webb mines them with enough restraint to strengthen, rather than overshoot, her themes of loss and retribution. --Scott Neuffer, freelance journalist and fiction author.