Lena Jones
Created by Betty Webb

This cowgirl has the blues...

While a lot of private eyes seem to offer us no glimpse of their past, workaholic Arizona gumshoe LENA JONES tells us plenty about her childhood. Or at least what she can remember...

At four, she was found abandoned, lying on the side of a highway in the desert, a bullet in the head having taken care of any memories she might have had. Shuttled back and forth through a series of foster homes, you might say is a little curious about where she originally came from. And that obsession seems to have lead her into becoming a private eye. I mean, what better practice for solving your own mysteries than solving other peoples?

In her first recorded case, Desert Noir (2001), Lena and her Pima Indian partner Jimmy Sisiwanquest look into the death of her pal, heiress and art dealer Clarice Kobe, who was beaten to death in the Western Heart Art Gallery. The investigation soon leads them into the sometimes nasty and backstabbing world of the ritzy Scottsdale art world, with detours into domestic violence, land development, politics and nearby Indian reservations.

According to one blurb, "Desert Noir heralds the debut of a detective as wounded as her clients, a woman battling her own demons while trying to rescue others from theirs." Oh, goodie! I always enjoy some good demon-wrasslin'... (I wonder if Lena ever runs into cowgirl P.I. Trade Ellis, who also calls Arizona home?)

Coincidentally, her second book, Desert Wives, which deals with the kidnapping of a 13-year-old girl by a polygamist, who wants to force her into "marriage" with a self-proclaimed "prophet" who already has numerous "wives," was released January 4, 2003, just shortly before Elizabeth Smart was returned to her family.

Before beginning to write mysteries full time, Betty Webb was a Phoenix book critic and reporter for the Arizona Tribune, and interviewed "everyone from US presidents and Nobel Prize winners to polygamy runaways and the homeless." She lives in Scottsdale, Arizona with her family and currently writes a column on small press mysteries for Mystery Scene Magazine.

NOVELS

• Desert Noir (2001)...Buy this book
• Desert Wives (2003)...Buy this book
• Desert Shadows (2004)...Buy this book
• Desert Run (2006)...Buy this book
• Desert Cut (2008)...Buy this book

SHORT STORIES

• "Desert Deceit" (2004, Desperate Journeys)

RELATED LINKS

• The Lena Jones Desert Mysteries
  The author's official site.
  
  
• WebbsBlog
  She wrtes, she blogs!

Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.