Aubrey Hamilton Reviews: Desert Vengeance by Betty Webb

Desert Vengeance by Betty Webb is her 9th mystery featuring Lena Jones. Lena and her Pima Indian partner Jimmy own a private investigation agency in Scottsdale, Arizona. This book is particularly personal to Lena, because the former foster father who raped her and multiple other children placed in his care is released from prison after 30 years. Lena is determined that no other child will suffer like she did and decides to kill him. She trails her former foster parents to their home, where she watches them. They are terrified of her and call the police, who warn Lena to stay away. She doesn’t and continues to stake out the home and warn their neighbors about the danger to their children next door. Not surprisingly, when her former foster mother is found shot, the police consider Lena their first and only suspect. She has a sound alibi however and is quickly cleared.

She tracks her rapist to his sister’s farm, where he seems to have plans most foul for his sister’s young granddaughter. Lena prepares to kill him in the middle of a dark night, only when she finds him, someone else has done the job for her. Considering that he was known to have raped a dozen or more children and was suspected to have abducted and killed several others, the pool of suspects is large.

While Lena investigates, she meets the social worker who named her after she was found as an injured toddler. She returns to talk to a set of foster parents who genuinely cared about her and tried to help her. All of this looking back stirs up bursts of memories of her brief time with her parents, which have always come to her in bits and pieces. These flashes are becoming more distinct and are helping her understand how she came to be separated from her family.

Betty Webb is a former investigative journalist and it shows in her Lena Jones books. Each story conveys a great deal of information about a social issue wrapped into a competently plotted and tightly written mystery. Desert Wives, the second in this series, highlighted the ongoing problem of child marriage and polygamy within more extreme sects of the Church of Mormon. This book focuses on the foster care system and its many failures in protecting vulnerable children.

·         Hardcover: 284 pages

·         Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press (February 7, 2017)

·         Language: English

·         ISBN-10: 1464205930

·         ISBN-13: 978-1464205934

Aubrey Hamilton ©2018

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal IT projects by day and reads mysteries at night.