Cactus Heart
A David Mapstone Mystery
Jon Talton
Poisoned Pen Press (Hardcover)
ISBN-10: 1-59058-352-3 (1590583523)
ISBN-13: 978-1-59058-352-4 (9781590593524)
Publication Date: May 2007
List Price: $24.95
Synopsis (from
the publisher): This “prequel” to the David Mapstone
mysteries takes place in 1999, when everything dot-com was making
money, the Y2K bug was the greatest danger facing the world, and the
good times seemed as if they would never end.
It was a time before David and Lindsey were together, before Mike
Peralta was sherriff, and before David had rid himself of the sexy and
mysterious Gretchen.
In Phoenix,
it’s the sweet season and Christmas and the new millennium are
only weeks away. But history professor David Mapstone, just hired by
the Sheriff’s Office, still finds trouble, chasing a robber into
an abandoned warehouse and discovering a gruesome crime from six
decades ago.
Mapstone begins an investigation into a Depression-era kidnapping that
transfixed Arizona and the nation: the disappearance of a cattle
baron’s grandsons, their bodies never found. And although the
kidnapper was caught and executed, Mapstone uncovers evidence that
justice was far from done. But this is no history lesson. The cattle
baron’s heirs now run a Fortune 500 company and wield far more
clout than a former-professor-turned-deputy. When one of the heirs
turns up dead, Mapstone knows his life may even be at risk.
Review: Jon Talton returns to the last months of 1999 as the setting for the fifth mystery in the David Mapstone series, Cactus Heart.
Mapstone has an interesting profession: a historian, working on a
commission basis, for the Maricopa County Sheriff's Department. He also
has the rank of Deputy Sheriff with all the privileges and
responsibilities that come with the title. When the bodies of two
children are discovered sealed behind the wall of an abandoned
warehouse in downtown Phoenix, Mapstone is drawn into a crime from 1941
in which the twin grandsons of a prominent Arizona businessman were
kidnapped, their bodies never found ... until now. Though the kidnapper
had been caught, tried, and executed, Mapstone orders some tests on the
skeletal remains, the results of which lead him to believe the case is
far from closed.
Cold case crimes are fascinating in many ways, and the one presented in Cactus Heart
is at times riveting. Mapstone uses modern technology, from
computerized databases to DNA testing, and combines it with handwritten
police and medical records from decades earlier to piece together how
those two boys came to be entombed in the warehouse. He also deftly
negotiates overlapping jurisdictions in investigating the crime and
skillfully handles the politically sensitive task of taking on a still
powerful Arizona family.
Talton manages to integrate Mapstone's personal life, his strengths and weaknesses, his doubts and fears, into Cactus Heart
without detracting from the overall story. (The title actually refers
to Mapstone himself, not some aspect of the crime.) This not only
creates a strong, complex protagonist that contrasts well with other
characters but also enhances key elements of the plot.
The plot itself gets a little convoluted on occasion and there are a
few too many convenient coincidences that allow Mapstone to wrap things
up neatly in the end, but these minor faults don't lessen the appeal of
this very good mystery.
Special thanks to Poisoned Pen Press for providing an ARC of Cactus Heart for this review.
Review Copyright © 2007 — Hidden Staircase Mystery Books — All Rights Reserved.
Mysteries in this series ...
Concrete Desert
St. Martin's Minotaur (Hardcover), 2001
ISBN-10: 0-312-26953-6 (0312269536)
Camelback Falls
St. Martin's Minotaur (Hardcover), 2003
ISBN-10: 0-312-30404-8 (0312304048)
Dry Heat
St. Martin's Minotaur (Hardcover), 2004
ISBN-10: 0-312-33385-4 (0312333854)
Arizona Dreams
Poisoned Pen Press (Hardcover), 2006
ISBN-10: 1-59058-318-3 (1590583183)
Cactus Heart
Poisoned Pen Press (Hardcover), 2006
ISBN-10: 1-59058-352-3 (1590583523)
ISBN-13: 978-1-59058-352-4 (9781590583524)
Omnimystery keywords for Cactus Heart ...
Location(s) referenced: Phoenix.
