Jon Talton: 11 books

Jon Talton staked out the Southwest in his award-winning David Mapstone mysteries. The Washington Post called Concrete Desert “more intelligent and rewarding than most contemporary mysteries.” And author John Lescroart labeled Arizona Dreams “a pure delight,” saying that Mapstone is “one of...

In this ""prequel"" to the popular David Mapstone mysteries, author Jon Talton takes us back to 1999, when everything dot-com was making money, the Y2K bug was the greatest danger facing the world, and the good times seemed as if they would never end. It was a time before David...

""In the quiet of my forgotten office in the old country courthouse, behind the plastic doorplate that reads 'Deputy David Mapstone, Sheriff's Office Historian, ' I fiddled with the tribal fashion of cops. The tan uniform blouse with epaulets and pocket flaps, the opening above the pocket...

The past never rests easy in Arizona. Forty years ago, a Phoenix reporter was killed by a car bomb in one of America's most notorious crimes. Three men went to prison - but was there more to the story of Charles Page's assassination? More than three low-level players? Did a kingpin order the...

Though the new metropolis is one of America's largest, many are unaware of Phoenix's rich and compelling history. Built on land once occupied by the most advanced pre-Columbian irrigation society, Phoenix overcame its hostile desert surroundings to become a thriving agricultural center. After World War...

"Talton's summer mystery, a first novel, shows how fertile the desert can be as a mystery setting... A stunning debut." —Booklist STARRED review Having recently lost his job as a history professor, David Mapstone returns to his boyhood home of Phoenix, Arizona, to find the city...

A handsome young New York professor comes to Phoenix to research his new book. But when he's brutally murdered, police connect him to one of the world's most deadly drug cartels. This shouldn't be a case for historian-turned-deputy David Mapstone – except the victim has been dating David's sister-in-law...

He's a man we know only as "the columnist." He writes for a newspaper in Seattle, isn't afraid to stir up trouble, and keeps his life - including his multiple lovers and his past - in safe compartments. But it's all about to be violently upended when he goes out on what seems like the most...

A cache of diamonds is stolen in Phoenix. The prime suspect is former Maricopa County Sheriff Mike Peralta, now a private investigator. Disappearing into Arizona's mountainous High Country, Peralta leaves his business partner and longtime friend David Mapstone with a stark choice. He can cooperate...

When a former student turns up in David Mapstone's office, she seems to have the perfect case for this history-professor-turned-deputy: a letter left by her deceased father, confessing to a forty-year-old murder and providing directions to the body. But things are never what they seem in Phoenix,...

The past is never past on the mean streets of Phoenix, especially when the mercury hits a hundred and it's only April. Half a century after the unsolved murder of an FBI agent, the missing badge is found on the body of a dead transient. The case seems a perfect fit for David Mapstone, history professor...