Paying My Debts.

My editor Barbara Peters saw the possibilities in this series from the start. I owe her for encouraging me to keep it going, and especially for the skills, intellect, and inspiration that make her America's top editor of mysteries. She styles herself the Evil Editor, but I have only received the good. The Poisoned Pen Press is a treasure, and I am particularly grateful to Rob Rosenwald, Jessica Tribble, Nan Beams, Annette Rogers and Suzan Baroni.

Cal Lash, retired Phoenix Police detective and a private investigator, once again was exceptionally helpful and patient with my questions. Maricopa County Deputy County Attorney David R. Foster likewise provided valuable a.s.sistance.

Even before I finished my previous book, Powers of Arrest, A Cincinnati Casebook, readers wanted to know when the next David Mapstone Mystery would be coming. So I owe you all my biggest debt, whether you started the series at its outset in 2001 or recently got hooked. It's humbling to see how many people are moved by the lives of these characters, including the biggest of all, Phoenix. Thank you.

About this Book.

The desert city of Phoenix, Arizona, has its secrets and its not about to give them up easily. Ex-cop Mike Peralta and ex-cold case expert David Mapstone have formed a detective agency to unearth them. And it's started badly...

Moments after hiring them, their first client is gunned down. And the deaths don't stop there. Someone is killing their clients, killing everyone connected with their cases, and is now coming for them. Why? The answer will lead Mapstone and Peralta into the world of human trafficking, corrupt politics, and the white supremacist movement.

Reviews "A great read!"

Michael Connelly

"A strong new voice in contemporary hard-boiled fiction."

Washington Post

"Talton has created a richly complex character in Mapstone... a well-crafted, nuanced series."

Booklist

"A haunting noir story vividly rendered by Talton's white-hot prose... original... impressively unyielding."

New York Journal of Books

"Talton crisply evokes Phoenix's New West ambience and keeps readers guessing with unexpected plot twists."

Publishers Weekly

About this Series PHOENIX COLD CASES.

David Mapstone: ex-cop, ex-history professor.

As a cop, Mapstone learned never to trust anyone. As a historian, he learned that the past is never past and everything is connected.

Now he's digging into Phoenix, Arizona's secrets. Buried secrets that the city is not about to give up easily.

Just as well he's armed with a .357 magnum Colt Python.

1. Concrete Desert.

A young woman's body is found dumped in the desert in circ.u.mstances identical to those of an infamous 40-year-old unsolved murder.

Concrete Desert is available here.

2. Cactus Heart

Mapstone unearths the skeletons of a pair of four-year-old twins, the victims in a notorious Depression-era kidnapping case. But what should be a matter of tying up loose ends quickly becomes something more sinister, more personal... and more deadly.

Cactus Heart is available here.

3. Camelback Falls

When Sheriff Peralta is shot by a sniper, Mapstone must confront his own past and the deadly consequences of a small-town shoot-out in 1979 that left Peralta and Mapstone standing over four dead bodies.

Camelback Falls is available here.

4. Dry Heat

Half a century after the unsolved murder of an FBI agent, the victim's missing badge is found on the body of a dead transient. The trail leads Mapstone into the Arizonan desert, and eventually to San Francisco, as he slowly uncovers the b.l.o.o.d.y secrets surrounding the FBI badge.

Dry Heat is available here.

5. Arizona Dreams

Mapstone receives a letter confessing to a forty-year-old murder and providing directions to the body. But things are never what they seem in Phoenix. There's a body right where the letter said it would be but it's only weeks old, not years...

Arizona Dreams is available here.

6. South Phoenix Rules

Phoenix, Arizona in August. It's 114 degrees in the shade but it's going to get even hotter for cold case investigator David Mapstone when he starts investigating a drug cartel execution.

South Phoenix Rules is available here.

7. The Night Detectives.

Mapstone and Peralta are Phoenix's newest private detective agency. But someone is killing their clients, killing everyone connected with their cases, and is now coming for them. Why?

The Night Detectives is available here.

About the Author.

JON TALTON is a fourth-generation Arizonan who grew up in the same Phoenix neighbourhood that David Mapstone calls home. A journalist of more than twenty years, he now lives in Washington state where he is the economics columnist for the Seattle Times and writes the Rogue Columnist blog.

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