Lena Jones helps Rebecca, a thirteen-year-old girl escape from Purity, one of Arizona's notorious polygamy compounds. But while leading Rebecca up a desert canyon away from the compound, she stumbles across the body of Prophet Solomon, the man the little girl was being forced to marry. Rebecca's mother is arrested for the Prophet's murder, and Lena must return to Purity to find the real murderer. The only way Lena can do this, though, is by disguising herself as a new "sister wife," and pretending to be a polygamist herself.

While running surveillance in an industrial section of Scottsdale, P.I. Lena Jones discovers the body of a woman connected to Second Zion, an infamous polygamy cult based in northern Arizona. Lena joins forces with Rosella, a former polygamist sister wife, to find the victim's killer, and soon discovers a shocking secret: in a society where one man can have ten wives, nine men will have none.

DESERT CUT

“A propulsive, thought-provoking read.”
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

“Mysteries don’t get more hard-hitting than this. Betty Webb is a first-rate investigative journalist who has taken on one of the most controversial topics I can imagine. Fiction and reality intersect in a devastating way. Readers will be talking about DESERT CUT for a long time to come.”
DAVID MORRELL
New York Times bestselling author of
THE BROTHERHOOD OF THE ROSE and CREEPERS

DESERT RUN

"At the start of Webb's multifaceted, 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 POW's from a prison camp in Scottsdale, Arizona, 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... Webb combines evocative descriptions of place with fine historical research in a plot packed with twists."

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

DESERT SHADOWS
Publishing Can Be Murder

"Loyalty, compassion and a sharp sense of humor help Arizona PI Lena Jones survive as she continues to struggle with her troubled past in Webb's third socially conscious, thought-provoking mystery."
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

DESERT NOIR

"Highly accomplished debut of what promises to be an exciting new series... A fully realized picture of Arizona, from barrios to mountaintop mansions, with the rich backdrop of Indian legend and desert facing erosion by urban sprawl... A must read for any fan of the modern female PI novel."
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY