Betty Webb Books in Order
This page lists Betty Webb books in order, with short summaries, reading-order help, and background on Lena Jones, Gunn Zoo, and Lost in Paris.
Last updated: July 4, 2026
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Publication Order
18 books
Desert Noir
by Betty Webb
2001
The murder of Scottsdale art dealer Clarice Kobe sends private investigator Lena Jones into a case tangled with greed, abuse, and land politics. It is also the start of Lena's long search for the truth about who she is.
Desert Wives
by Betty Webb
2003
After helping a thirteen-year-old girl flee a polygamy compound, Lena goes undercover when the girl's mother is accused of killing the prophet. Inside the cult she finds fear, violence, and fresh echoes of her own buried childhood.
Desert Shadows
by Betty Webb
2004
When a racist publisher is poisoned and Owen Sisiwan is blamed, Lena steps in to defend him. Her investigation takes her through greed, extremism, and ugly publishing politics while memories of her own childhood begin to surface.
Desert Run
by Betty Webb
2006
Working security on a documentary about a wartime prison camp, Lena gets pulled into the murder of an elderly former U-boat commander. The case reaches back to a 1944 escape, an old family massacre, and secrets buried in the desert.
Desert Cut
by Betty Webb
2008
While scouting locations for a documentary, Lena and filmmaker Warren Quinn find the mutilated body of a young girl. Their investigation leads into a small Arizona town, a brutal old practice, and a race to save other children.
The Anteater of Death
by Betty Webb
2008
A wealthy man turns up dead in a pregnant anteater's enclosure, and Teddy has to prove the animal did not kill him. Zoo politics, harbor snobs, and her own chaotic family make the case even messier.
Desert Lost
by Betty Webb
2009
A surveillance job leads Lena to the body of a woman tied to a northern Arizona polygamy cult. As she searches for a missing boy, an unexpected reunion with a beloved foster mother brings new clues about her past.
The Koala of Death
by Betty Webb
2010
Teddy pulls a fellow zookeeper's body from the harbor and quickly realizes the woman was murdered, not drowned. With suspects circling the zoo and marina, Teddy digs deeper while family troubles and fresh danger close in.
Desert Wind
by Betty Webb
2012
When Jimmy Sisiwan is arrested after two killings in a town divided over uranium mining, Lena heads north to clear him. Her search uncovers poisoned land, local grudges, and an old Arizona tragedy no one wants to face.
The Llama of Death
by Betty Webb
2013
Teddy takes a zoo llama to a Renaissance Faire and finds a wedding-chapel minister dead in the corral. His hidden past and his ties to Teddy's mother turn a strange murder into a very personal case.
Desert Rage
by Betty Webb
2014
A teenage girl confesses to slaughtering her family, but a Senate candidate insists there is more to the story, and Lena agrees to investigate. The case opens into buried family secrets and puts Lena in danger as she tries to protect two vulnerable teens.
The Puffin of Death
by Betty Webb
2015
Sent to Iceland to collect a polar bear cub for Gunn Zoo, Teddy stumbles across a shot American birdwatcher near a puffin colony. Another murder and a dangerous tour group turn her research trip into a deadly investigation.
Desert Vengeance
by Betty Webb
2017
The foster father who raped Lena as a child is released from prison, and soon two connected murders follow. Forced back into her own darkest memories, Lena hunts a killer in a case that hits painfully close to home.
The Otter of Death
by Betty Webb
2018
During an otter count near Gunn Landing Harbor, Teddy recovers a smartphone that holds a photo of murder, then finds the victim close by. When her friend Lila is arrested, Teddy risks her own safety to clear her.
Desert Redemption
by Betty Webb
2019
When artist Harold Slow Horse asks Lena to look into his ex-wife's strange new commune, the case pulls her toward two desert cults and the truth about her own past. It is the book that drives hardest at Lena's oldest unanswered questions.
The Panda of Death
by Betty Webb
2020
A red panda's arrival should be happy news at Gunn Zoo, until Sheriff Joe Rejas learns he has an unknown son, and the young man is arrested for murder. Teddy digs into zoo secrets and local gossip to protect her new family.
Lost in Paris
by Betty Webb
2023
In 1922 Paris, exiled Alabama artist Zoe Barlow tries to recover Ernest Hemingway's missing manuscripts for Hadley Hemingway. The search pulls her into murder, postwar secrets, and the messy new life she has built among the Lost Generation.
The Clock Struck Murder
by Betty Webb
2024
In 1924 Paris, Zoe buys a replacement clock and discovers it is wrapped in a lost Chagall painting. When the flea-market seller turns up dead, Zoe is drawn into an art-world murder case against the backdrop of the Summer Olympics.
Where should I start?
If you want the core Arizona story: Desert Noir → Desert Wives → Desert Shadows
If you like darker, issue-driven mysteries: Desert Wives → Desert Lost → Desert Wind
If you want a lighter animal mystery: The Anteater of Death → The Koala of Death → The Llama of Death
If you want Jazz Age Paris: Lost in Paris → The Clock Struck Murder
Author bio
Betty Webb writes mysteries that feel rooted in real places and real trouble. She has deep roots in Hamilton, Alabama, and she has lived in Scottsdale, Arizona, since 1982. The desert around Scottsdale, hot, beautiful, and unforgiving, runs through much of her work.
She did not arrive at fiction by a straight path.
Before she became a full-time novelist, Webb studied art and spent about twenty years working as a graphic designer in Los Angeles and New York City. After that, she moved into journalism, where she wrote both hard news and features. Her reporting took her into all kinds of worlds, and she has said she interviewed everyone from U.S. presidents and moon-walking astronauts to Nobel Prize winners, the homeless, and young people fleeing polygamist groups.
That background explains a lot about her books. Webb has said that many of the Lena Jones novels grew out of real stories she covered as a reporter, so even the most fast-moving plots tend to have solid social ground under them. Long before publication, she was already trying to write fiction. She has said she wrote her first novel at fourteen, a story about a girl stealing a horse.
Later, while working as a journalist and newspaper book reviewer, she found herself staring at the huge stack of books publishers sent her and thinking she could write one herself. That impulse led to Desert Noir, the first Lena Jones mystery. It was a strong start, and it set the tone for a series that mixes private-eye plotting with questions about identity, family damage, and the way power gets used in the modern Southwest.
That reporter's eye never left her.
Readers who start with the Lena Jones books usually notice two things right away: the Arizona setting feels real, and the crimes matter beyond the puzzle. In Desert Noir, Desert Wives, and eventually Desert Redemption, Webb gives Lena cases tied to art-world greed, polygamist communities, foster care, and buried family history. Lena is tough, wounded, and persistent, and Webb lets that emotional arc build from book to book.
Webb also has a lighter side. Her Gunn Zoo mysteries, beginning with The Anteater of Death, came out of her work at the Phoenix Zoo. On her official bio page, she recalls spending mornings in Monkey Village, keeping eager children away from sharp-toothed squirrel monkeys. That first-hand animal knowledge shows up in The Koala of Death, The Puffin of Death, and the rest of the series, where zookeeper Teddy Bentley solves murders without losing the humor.
More recently, Webb turned to historical mystery with Lost in Paris and The Clock Struck Murder. These books shift from Arizona and coastal California to 1920s Paris, but they keep the same strengths: a sharp sense of place, a capable woman at the center, and mysteries tied to the larger world around her. Art, literature, race, class, and the long shadow of war all have a place in Zoe Barlow's story.
Across all three series, Webb returns to outsiders, family secrets, damaged institutions, and the question of how people keep going after violence. Genealogy matters, too, and that interest shows up again and again in stories about bloodlines, missing parents, and hidden pasts. She still lives with her family in the Scottsdale area she writes about, still teaches writing at the university level, and spent many years as a syndicated book reviewer. Even in the funny books, she usually has something serious on her mind.
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