Concrete Desert (David Mapstone Mysteries)

Jon Talton is one of the few moderate journalists at the arch-conservative Arizona Republic, or "Repulsive" as it's affectionately known. He writes passionately about the right-wing ideologues who think government is the source of all evil - even though they are the government - and whose irresponsible tax-slashing and corporate welfare for their business friends, and apathy towards the most basic needs of ordinary people, has left Arizona the Mississippi of the West.

Some of these themes make it into "Concrete Desert", but as a detective thriller it just isn't up to scratch. The characters are stick figures, the dialog is frequently thudding, and the story never really comes together or makes sense - it just plods along until it runs out of steam, long after the reader has stopped caring.

Much as I like Talton's newspaper columns, I fear the detective thriller is not his genre. I just hope things improve in his second novel.

Granted, this book will be a shock for innocent Easterners who think of Phoenix (and other Southwestern cities) as clean modern places free of the drugs and street crime that plague old cities of the Rust Belt and East Coast.

Fact: most "East Coast" drugs are imported, much through cities such as Phoenix, Tucson, Albuquerque and El Paso. Fact: along with the smuggling of illegal aliens, drug's are a bloody and heartless business. Fact: Crime in Phoenix is almost double the rate for New York city, and property crime is more than double. Fact: culturally, Phoenix is still a cow town, but now it is also a high crime town.

Talton bases his story on these facts, presenting a hard-boiled story of crime and corruption in Phoenix. It is a story that is almost ignored by the daily press, which provides Talton with his day job; Talton is one of the first writers to fictionalize the reality of "the good life" in the sunshine of the Southwest. If you want a up-to-date factual account of the drug business along the US-Mexico border, look up Tucson author Charles Bowden.

Supposedly a fourth generation Arizonan, he's sometimes sloppy on easy to check facts, such as asserting Arizona had about 50,000 people when it became a state in 1912. The fact is closer to 200,000 by 1910. He offers a common theme that explosive growth has destroyed the old time atmosphere, apparently unaware that Arizona almost doubled in population in the decade preceding statehood. Yet, this whining about the passing of the "good ol' days" is a prevalent theme, the excuse used by long time residents to justify doing little or nothing about current problems.

It's an ideal setting for Talton's fictional investigator, failed history professor David Mapstone who's returned to Phoenix and been hired on a free-lance basis by an old friend in the Sheriff's Office. His job? Investigate old unsolved crimes, and see if he can come up with something new. It provides him with a job as a sworn sheriff's deputy and a license to do pretty much as he wants, including hot-dogging as a lone-wolf investigator of recent murders.

The principle villains, of course, are an Iranian immigrant and a corrupt politician. It's a nice bit of politically correct typecasting. The politician is vanquished, of course, but the Iranian villain lives on to generate villainy for future novels. If this sounds strange, keep in mind that of the last four elected governors of Arizona one was impeached and removed from office, another resigned after being indicted for criminal fraud and eventually pardoned by President Bill Clinton, whom he had never failed to denounce while in office.

Although the book is fiction, nothing Talton writes about is implausible in Phoenix or Arizona. That's what makes it so interesting; he's a wide-eyed innocent in pursuit of a good story, largely unaware of the cynicism of crime, politics and opportunism in Arizona. After all, too much of a good thing -- or bad thing, as the case may be -- tends to make fiction unreal. Talton manages a nice enough balance to create a fast-paced story.

All in all, it's a good introduction to the real Phoenix.

The Chamber of Commerce isn't going to like his books; but then, the Chamber and its blindness to problems is one reason the crime rate is so high. Perhaps if Talton can make a series out of these books, he'll generate enough heat and controversy that the police and sheriff's office will make an effort to clean up some of the persistent crime.

But then, in Phoenix old timers always found it easier to ignore or cover-up rather than confront problems. Talton, or his alter ego Mapstone, is an exception to that old habit. It provides the foundation for what should be a good series of books, and an intriguing unraveling of the social problems of the area.

This book is a good start on what could become a fascinating series. His second book, "Camelback Falls," is even better. Let's hope he continues improving, and that he finds a growing audience interesting in learning about the real Phoenix behind the stucco and red-tile roofed facade of precocious respectability.