Desert Girl

The fourth book in the popular Elodie Fontaine mystery series finds Elodie travelling to Southern California to search for the birth father she never knew. She discovers his name—Hector Melendez—and learns that he was a Mexican-American professor whose main interest was the study of petroglyphs—ancient rock carvings in the desert mountains. Trouble is, he vanished from sight a decade earlier and his car was found abandoned on the shores of a once-famous salt lake. Refusing to believe that he is dead, Elodie, along with her half-sister Layna, embarks on a journey that takes them through the off-the-grid settlements of Bombay Beach, Slab City, Salvation Mountain, and finally into the lonely Sonoran Desert hills, where deep washes and shifting rocks make any kind of traveling treacherous. Where has Hector gone and why won’t anyone talk about him? Even some of Elodie’s newfound relatives in California make it clear that her efforts to find him are not wanted. Elodie is trying to find out answers to these questions when she learns that she is not the only one looking for him . . .