Arizona Dreams

              Arizona Dreams


                     by Jon Talton


David Mapstone is a former history professor who is now a deputy working for the Phoenix,  Arizona  police department and is making a reputation for himself by solving cold forgotten cases. Most of these have a historical basis and Mapstone uses his extensive knowledge of Arizona history as well as geography to good effect.


For decades people have looked at Arizona and in this case Phoenix and it's environs as a dream location. The building boom had gone on unchecked as people moved to the area for the warm climate and the beauty of the desert until Phoenix has become the fifth largest city in the USA.

Phoenix is a city of culture, art, crime aplenty and lots of suburbs. What Phoenix does not have is water, the elixir of life. While there is only about 7 inches of rain a year there are a few aquifers. Most of the water is from dammed  streams  and piped in from other places. These days in order to develop an area you must prove that there is a water supply. The scope of the development is ARIZONA DREAMS is the planned building of 45,000 homes. The land is there, the money is available providing the water is more than an illusion.


Mapstone is led to a body in the desert, a body in a casino as well as a body in his own historic neighborhood. The methods of the deaths are unusual. Two of the victims were killed by an ice pick .   It is Mapstone's keen insight into ways of the fast-buck city that will hold the key to the solution of these crimes.


Talton paints such a picture of an Arizona and a Phoenix that is gone forever that I get nostalgic and I rue the fact that I didn't live there when. But his art is such that the dream of Arizona creeps through and I wouldn't mind going there now.