For twenty
years mystery author Betty Webb worked as a journalist, interviewing
everyone from U.S. presidents, astronauts who walked on the moon, and polygamy
runaways. A nationally syndicated literary critic for more than thirty
years, she currently reviews for Mystery Scene Magazine. She is the author
of ten Lena Jones books and five Gunn Zoo mysteries. Learn more about Betty and
her books at her website.
The Empty
Nest
Although I enjoyed being the mother of two sons, I’ll
admit to feeling relieved when they finally left home to begin their own lives.
There was no empty nest syndrome for me. Instead, I redecorated their room,
turning it into the den where I would attempt to write the Great American
Novel.
Twenty years later I still hadn’t written the Great
American Novel (Has anyone actually done that yet?), but I did create Lena
Jones, a wounded foster child who went on to become a rough and tumble private
investigator in Scottsdale, AZ. I watched her as she fought her way through her
first big case in Desert Noir in 2000
and cheered her on through nine more adventures. This all ended in December of
2018 when I typed THE END on the last page of Desert Redemption, the tenth and final Lena Jones novel.
Although I hoped they would, the angels didn’t sing.
No problem. As an ex-reporter, I stopped hearing the angels a long time ago.
But I still heaved a sigh of relief as I wrote the accompanying letter to my
editor Barbara Peters at Poisoned Pen Press, and attached the manuscript.
There. I was free. Done. Finished. It was over.
My feet did a happy dance under my desk as I
wiggled my butt and hummed the first part of the “Hallelujah Chorus.”
But the moment I hit SEND and the manuscript headed
off into the ozone, I began to cry.
Writers are weird. Sometimes we take our fictional
friends more seriously than our real ones. And even our families.
That’s because a writer’s characters become real to
us. For nineteen years I would wake up in the morning, thinking, “What’s Lena
going to do today? Where’s she going to go?”
I followed her through Desert Noir, as she explored the abuse of eminent domain. In Desert Wives I took her to a polygamy
cult where she investigated the sexual abuse of young girls. Then in Desert Shadows, she fought against the rise
of White Power groups. in Desert Run
she learned that some new crimes were connected to the escape of German POWs
from a Phoenix POW camp during WWII. In Desert
Cut Lena confronted an ancient and vicious practice affecting young girls.
In Desert Lost she learned that
polygamy’s many crimes don’t affect only women. In Desert Wind she exposed the cover-up of the many deaths connected
to Nevada’s atom bomb testing In Desert Rage
she fought to save two teens from being imprisoned for murders they didn’t
commit. In Desert Vengeance she
considered killing the foster father who had raped her when she was nine, and
in Desert Redemption her long search
for the mother who’d abandoned her finally came to an end.
That’s a lot of history with one character, a history
that made Lena Jones the daughter I was never fortunate enough to have.
Now I sit in front of my computer with a hole in my
heart, an empty space that my Lena Jones used to occupy. She had her problems,
sure, but her courage and compassion more than made up for her flaws. So I left
her in that happy place she’d always wanted to live in (no, I didn’t kill her!)
Finito, Lena, and brava. And today, to nurse my aching heart, I began writing
another series.
But in a way, I didn’t really leaving my brave girl
behind, because the new series is about her great-grandmother. And in that
series, we’ll learn how Lena Jones wound up with her courage and compassion.
Desert
Redemption
At the age of four, Scottsdale private eye Lena Jones
was shot in the head and left to die on a Phoenix street. After her rescue, she
spent years in the abusive foster care system, never knowing who her parents
were and why they didn’t claim her. When Desert
Redemption begins, she still does not know her real name.
Lena’s rough childhood--and the suspicion that her
parents may have been members of a cult—keep her hackles raised. So when
Chelsea, the ex-wife of Harold Slow Horse, a close friend, joins a “new
thought” organization called Kanati, Lena begins to investigate. She soon
learns that two communes—polar opposites of each other—have sprung up nearby in
the Arizona desert. The participants at EarthWay follow a rigorous dietary
regime that could threaten the health of its back-to-the-land inhabitants,
while the more pleasure-loving folk at Kanati are dining on sumptuous French
cuisine.
On an early morning horseback ride across the Pima
Indian Reservation, Lena finds an emaciated woman’s body in the desert.
“Reservation Woman” lies in a spot close to EarthWay, clad in a dress similar
to the ones worn by its women. But there is something about her face that
reminds Lena of the Kanatians.
While investigating, Lena’s memory is jolted back to
that horrible night when her father and younger brother were among those
murdered by a cult leader named Abraham, who then vanished. Lena begins to
wonder if either EarthWay or Kanati could be linked to that night, and to her
own near-death. Could leaders of one or both shed light on what had happened to
Lena’s mother, who vanished at the same time as Abraham?
All these mysteries are resolved in Desert Redemption, the tenth and final
Lena Jones case, which can also be enjoyed on its own.
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