15. The Arizona Triangle by Sydney Graves

listened on Audible

292 pgs.

2024
Adult Mystery
Finished 4/8/2026
Goodreads rating:   3.44
My rating: 4.5
Setting: Contemporary Arizona - Tucson/Oracle

My comments: Recommended by Gemini.  Wonderful setting in the Tucson/Oracle, Arizona areas.  A 39-year-old private detective gets pulled into the case of her missing, then murdered, ex-best friend.  Although Oracle is called Delphi in the book, and Oro Valley is called something different, the rest of the descriptions have accurate location, names and so much of the setting is described in full that I got ridiculously home sick.  It was a good mystery, though draggy in places, but certainly kept my interest and expectations going.  I've skimmed a few not-so-great reviews on Goodreads, but I really loved this - maybe because of the setting alone, but it wasn't a boring story at all.  And although the protagonist was a late-onset lesbian, other than one small place in the story, there were really no descriptions of that.  I think there's a possibility there may be more coming in this series, and I really do hope so, just for the setting alone.

Goodreads synopsis: In the vein of the bestselling California noirs of Sue Grafton and Sara Gran, a whodunnit about loyalty, love, and the legacy of trauma featuring a hardboiled, queer private eye whose latest case takes her deep into her own complicated past.

On the cusp of forty, Justine Bailen, better known as Jo, works for an all-female detective agency based in Tucson, Arizona. While staking out a cheating spouse, she learns that her long-estranged best friend from childhood, Rose, is missing, and that Rose’s mother wants to hire Jo to find her. This case is all kinds of wrong for Jo, but she has no choice but to head back to her hometown, an hour north and a world away from Tucson.

Back in Delphi, she learns that her high school boyfriend, Tyler—who is probably part of the reason her friendship with Rose went south—is the cop assigned to the case. It doesn’t take long for Jo to realize that he’s all mixed up in it, too. To have any hope of learning the truth about Rose’s disappearance, Jo must finally face the demons she thought she’d escaped.