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Desert Wind
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


Reviewed 2012
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