Desert Run

January 23, 2006
At the start of Webb's fast-paced fourth Lena Jones mystery (after 2004's Desert Shadows
), the scrappy workaholic PI is supervising security for filmmaker Warren Quinn, who's shooting a documentary about the escape of German POWs from a prison camp in Scottsdale, Ariz., in 1944. When someone murders the leader of the escapees, arrogant, disagreeable Erik Ernst, now 91 and retired in Scottsdale, suspicion falls on the former U-boat commander's Ethiopian immigrant care-giver, Rada Tesema. Believing Tesema to be innocent, Lena agrees to investigate. Meanwhile, Lena's personal life is in disarray. Raised in foster homes and wary of close relationships, she's drawn to Quinn but is suspicious of his motives. Her partner in Desert Investigations, Jimmy Sisiwan, is getting married and taking a job with Lena's biggest customer, while Lena's mentor in the Scottsdale police department is returning to Brooklyn. Webb combines evocative descriptions of place with fine historical research in a plot packed with twists.

March 1, 2006
While providing security for the filming of a documentary about the escape of German prisoners from a camp in the Scottsdale, AZ, area in 1944, private investigator Lena Jones ("Desert Shadows" finds that there is nothing simple about the murder of wheelchair-bound ninetysomething Kapitan Ernst, a survivor from that time. The convoluted plot, based on an actual event, is made believable by the incorporation of little-known details of the escape. Webb lives in Scottsdale.

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