Jon Talton Arizona Dreams

Arizona Dreams

Jon Talton

Poisoned Pen, Sep 2006, $24.95

ISBN: 1590583183

In the Willo Historic District of Phoenix, a neighbor rushes to the home of Mariposa County Sheriff's Department deputy sheriffs Lindsey Mapstone and her spouse retired history professor Dave to bring them to a nearby murder scene. Someone used an ice pick to kill lawyer Alan Cordesman in his home, which happens to be part of the historic tour of the neighborhood. At the crime scene Lindsey introduces her estranged sister Robin to her husband, who until that moment was unaware that his wife even had a sibling.

Meanwhile a former student informs David that her late father confessed in a letter that he killed a man four decades ago leaving the body in the desert. Going to the location they find the remains of Harry Bell. However, the victim is only a few weeks dead not the forty years claimed by the letter and David's student has vanished. Soon others are killed with an ice pick. David traces his former student, who turns out never attended any of his classes; instead she is Dana Earley, wife of Maricopa County supervisor Tom Earley, who publicly is criticizing Sheriff Mike Peralta for hiring a history professor to work cold cases when illegal immigration is the pressing issue.

ARIZONA DREAMS is a terrific police procedural that contains several delightful spins to keep readers alert to see where Jon Talton's homicidal tour of Phoenix ends up. David is at his best whether he finds a corpse in the DRY HEAT of the desert, drinking a martini with a cold blooded killer, meeting a sister in law he never knew existed, or confronting "Lady Macbeth" and her political hack of a spouse. Using the immigration issue as a political pointmaker adds to a fabulous investigation that will keep the audience fully occupied.

Harriet Klausner