While scouting locations for a film documentary on the Arizona's Apache Wars, private investigator Lena Jones and Oscar-winning director Warren Quinn, discover the mutilated body of a young girl. The gruesome manner of the child's death evokes memories of Lena's own rough childhood. Clashing with the local law, Lena's investigation uncovers a small town with a big secret. Los Perdidos is not the Eden it first appears. Founded by the descendants of pioneers who fought Geronimo, the townspeople have now armed themselves against the hordes of illegal immigrants streaming across the Arizona/Mexico border. A significant population of documented foreign-born residents also lives and works in Los Perdedos at a modern plant. Lena senses a sinister force at work in the town--but where? Then two more girls disappear from Los Perdidos, and as the death toll mounts, Lena is tempted to implement some frontier justice of her own. When she finally unmasks the killer, she discovers a chain of horrific crimes responsible for subjugating millions of girls and women around the globe. In Desert Cut, the still vivid memory of Geronimo's war mixes with the modern immigration war, the hard life on the Arizona/Mexico border contrasts with Hollywood's slick production meetings, and the cruelty of an ancient practice is tempered by a growing underground railroad fighting to save its young victims.

Reviews

"Revelations of a dark past blossom from the mutilated corpse of a beautiful girl-child laid to rest in a desert grave.

While scouting for locations near the popular tourist destination of Los Perdidos, Ariz., Scottsdale private eye Lena Jones and her lover, Oscar-winning director Warren Quinn, uncover a shallow grave. The body brings back nightmares of Lena's own troubled childhood (Desert Wives, 2003). She has only fragmentary memories of her life before she was shot in the head by her mother and grew up in a series of foster homes. The sheriff, who doesn't want Lena's help, withholds the coroner's report, but she can't let the case go. Although the search is on for pedophiles, she worries that someone even more sinister is involved. A large chemical plant nearby employs many foreign-born workers. Could the dark-skinned child be connected to that population? When two more girls go missing, Lena's investigations turn up the horrifying discovery that female genital mutilation is being practiced in the immigrant community. The desert girl-child bled to death when her genitals were crudely removed with a knife. One of the missing girls is the daughter of a self-proclaimed charismatic minister in the mold of Jim Jones. As Lena works to find The Cutter, parts of her own past are slowly revealed.

Webb's dark tale of a clash of cultures is emotionally draining and intellectually challenging."--Kirkus Reviews