Cactus Heart

Praise for Cactus Heart... "Mapstone is the kind of modern hero many readers dream of: intellectual but physical, tough but sensitive." -Publishers WeeklyIn 1999 Phoenix, 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 six decades old. 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 the former-professor-turned-deputy.

Then one of the heirs turns up dead.... Jon Talton is the author of nine novels, including the David Mapstone Mysteries, The Cincinnati Casebook series, and the thriller Deadline Man.

He is a veteran journalist, but before he began his journalism career, Jon worked as an ambulance medic in the inner city of Phoenix.

Jon lives in Washington state where he is an economics columnist for the Seattle Times and runs the blog Rogue Columnist. www.jontalton.com