Betty Webb Desert Run

Desert Run

Betty Webb

Poisoned Pen, Mar 2006, $24.95, 358 pp.

ISBN: 1590582349

On Christmas Eve 1944, the crew of the German U-boat 237 escapes the sea of sand prison by digging an underground tunnel. As Kapitan Zur See Erik Ernst explains to his twenty seven POW subordinates that people live nearby in this desert, they understand that it means water is also nearby. They plan to raft down the river to Mexico.

Desert Investigations private eye Lena Jones provides security to the crew of the documentary filming of Escape across the Desert that focuses on the German POW break over sixty years ago. She finds the nonagenarian star Kapitan Zur See Erik Ernst dead duct taped to his wheelchair, filled with a myriad of bruises that show he was violently beaten. Scottsdale PD Captain Kryzinksi, Lena's former boss, heads the investigation because the case involves a VIP, Director Warren Quinn. Meanwhile Lena wonders where the victim's Ethiopian caretaker, Rada Tesema is, as he should have found the body not her. Not long afterward the prime suspect Rada pleads with Lena to take the case so she can prove his innocence.

Based on a real historical event, DESERT RUN is a terrific murder mystery that uses what occurred in 1944 Arizona as a basis for the modern day who-done-it. The case is so interesting that the fact that her business partner Jimmy Siswan (see DESERT NOIR) is leaving seems trivial in comparison though it hurts the heroine even while she is used to leaving having been a product of the foster home shuffle. Lena digs into the past seeking motives to the present crime that to her appears one of passion in which the beleaguered Rada had no cause to commit. Betty Webb provides a robust Desert investigative tale.