Lena Jones Mystery, No 7
Betty Webb
Poisoned Pen Press
February 7. 2012 / ISBN: 978-1590589793
Mystery, Thriller & Suspense / Women Sleuths
Amazon
Reviewed
by Beth E. McKenzie
This book has
several sad, sad stories. The ones that aren't "truegospel"
are fictionalized versions of events combined to reveal dreadful
facts. Ms. Webb reaches into the past, considers the present and
speculates the future of uranium mining using Lena Jones, Private
Investigator, as our guide.
Lena's partner
in Desert Investigations, Jimmy Sisiwan, takes a couple of weeks
off and informs her through a voicemail on the office phone. Working
her investigative skills she finds out Jimmy's brother is being
held on suspicion of murder, so she zips up from Scottsdale to Walapai
Flats to lend a hand. Her reception is not friendly, and nearly
everybody she meets in the next few weeks tells her to butt-out
and go home. It is primarily through her effort to break the wall
of silence that we learn the stories of uranium mining practices
in the decades prior to 1970, environmental desecration, human rights
violations, callous disregard for human life or dignity and the
residual effect of nuclear weapons testing through generations yet
to come.
There a lot
of things to criticize about this book. In some ways it is all over
the place. The author intermingles nuclear fallout and mining hazards
like they are the same thing-which they are not. I also counted
over 40 different social issues that were casually dropped into
conversation-in fact it was so distracting it became a game to count
them. Some were directly related to the nuclear industry like the
Fukishima reactor accidents and the oil crisis. Others were directly
related to the desert southwest and Native Americans like water
rights, rabies outbreaks, casinos on reservations, and cross-cultural
influences pertaining to diabetes and alcoholism. But there were
also the seemingly random for this book: domestic violence, child
abuse, dirty cops, alternate lifestyles, rape, patricide, wives
of prisoners, and the list continues. I never could decide if the
purpose was to play down or enhance the Downwinder storyline. Was
the author trying to say that this is just one of many problems
in the world or was she trying to make sure that the reader elevated
the issue to the pantheon of universal social calamity?
The book is
also being billed as a piece "ripped from the headlines"
by an investigative journalist; revealing the story the government
wants to keep buried. This is the one item I feel is an untruth
-call it false advertising. It takes about 10 minutes of internet
searching to find all of the historical information in the story.
Also, subjects such as uranium mining safety issues, the Downwinders,
and the story of the illnesses of the cast and crew of the The
Conqueror, including the approximately 300 Paiute extras, was
part of my Nuclear Engineering curriculum in the early 1980's. The
author also never points out that most of the mines were closed
when it became evident that the Johnson administration was close
to passing a safe workplace law-what we fondly call OSHA-that would
cause operating costs to soar. It took until the Nixon administration
in 1970 to finally push it through, and the illnesses of the uranium
miners was a key factor in both efforts. Unfortunately, environmental
laws did not keep pace allowing mine owners to walk away from their
messes. New mines would not be allowed to operate like the old ones
did, nor could they legally be abandoned.
Criticism aside,
there can be no disagreement with the message here. The people who
are ill or watching their loved ones suffer don't care whether the
sickness was the result of mining or nuclear fallout and the government
settlement is a pittance against years of medical needs when it
can be claimed. As a Society we all need to do something that is
right before somebody does something else that is wrong in the name
of justice.
Other
reviews in this series
Desert
Noir, No 1
Desert
Wives, No 2
Desert
Shadows, No 3
Desert Run, No 4
Desert Cut, No 5
Desert
Lost, No 6
Desert
Wind, No 7
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