If you’ve followed the tough and fearless Scottsdale PI Lena Jones through her first eight detective novels, you’ve known from the opening installment that Lena harbors a deeply hidden and dark secret from her childhood. Shot in the head and left for dead at the roadside by her mother with no memory of her early childhood, “Little Girl Doe” was front page news and proved to be a survivor. She overcame physical handicaps and ended up in foster care, where she was sexually abused. She has buried the truth of that bleak past deep inside until it boils to the surface 30 years later when the man who scarred her so deeply is released from prison.

“Papa” Brian Wycoff is a free man after destroying the lives of at least seven foster children he molested while under his care, and Lena is so enraged over the injustice of his release that she goes against all her cop training and her scruples to seek personal revenge on what he did to her. Posters on phone poles, personal confrontation, stalking, waving a knife in public outside his home --- Lena goes totally off the rails. This is so unlike the Lena we know and count on to “do the right thing” even when it’s unconventional.

"Webb has outdone herself this time... She never steps over that threshold of over-the-top blood-and-guts description as she explores some of the heinous crimes against humanity, all the while delivering a humdinger of a thriller."

Lena is serious; she plans to seek the final revenge, no matter the consequences. Then someone beats her to it. First, Wycoff’s wife, the enabler in his crimes, is found shot dead in their Apache Junction house. Lena is hauled in as a suspect --- she hasn’t been exactly discreet in her activities --- but with no evidence to hold her, the police let her go and she is left to her own devices. She plants a GPS on his car and tracks him from the Phoenix area up to the high country, determined to finish the job.

Author Betty Webb, a former reporter for the Arizona Republic, covered many crime stories in her career and has put that accumulated knowledge to work in a detective noir series that focuses on the underbelly of offenses against children, women and all the other intolerable crimes that daily headlines are made of. DESERT VENGEANCE goes deeper into that most heinous of crimes --- child molestation --- which might make fans feel a bit squeamish, but she weaves such an intricate and thrilling tale of revenge that you can’t stop reading until the final surprising end.

Along the way, Lena, our tough yet resilient PI, discovers a soft underbelly in herself even as the memories flood to the surface in her pursuit of justice. Her ever-patient and gentle assistant, Jimmy, guides her through the dark tunnel of her despair in his calming wisdom. Her anchor through many storms, Jimmy steps up to rescue her from her greatest demons: the ones dwelling deep within herself.

Webb has outdone herself this time, not an easy task, as the Lena Jones series is one of the top shelf Arizona-based mysteries in my collection. She never steps over that threshold of over-the-top blood-and-guts description as she explores some of the heinous crimes against humanity, all the while delivering a humdinger of a thriller.