For Luis Montez, Denver attorney perennially on the edge of disaster, even a vacation can mean trouble. Physically fatigued, mentally exhausted, and severely banged up from his most recent misadventures, Luis accepts a friend's offer to relax on a Mexican beach. But things just don't work out the way he plans. Rachel, the young and mysterious woman he meets on the beach, disappears, and when Luis returns to Denver to try to resuscitate his law practice, he finds a flashy and tough private eye pressing him for details. Luis soon learns that Rachel is a member of a wealthy, powerful family that will stop at nothing to find her - and Luis is the last person known to have seen her. To keep the professional detective at bay, Luis embarks on his own investigation, one that takes him deep into the dark worlds of petty hoodlums, rich men's fantasies, and the underbelly of Denver's fringe literary community. Forced to strip away layers of lies from foes and friends alike, Luis uncovers ugly and dangerous truths that have been hidden for years. Ducking bullets and firebombs, he scrambles for the truth while he tries to fix the wrongs that pop up all around him: a seemingly random act of violence that claims the life of an innocent poet, a dead client whose case won't end, and the unsolved vanishing act of a forgotten rabble-rousing icon.
Denver attorney Luis Montez (The Last Client of Luis Montez, LJ 3/1/96), nursing a leg injury on the beach in Mexico, meets an intriguing young woman who flirts, lends him her writing-in-progress, then disappears. Back in Denver, Montez assists the private investigator hired by her wealthy family to find her. Meanwhile, a ne'er-do-well client's bankruptcy leads Montez into an underworld of blackmail, extortion, and murder. When the violence spills over into a neighborhood bookstore, killing a friend, Montez wonders if the two cases are connected. A screaming finale, a strong (but sometimes world-weary) Hispanic protagonist, and a novel look at Denver equal a good series addition. Copyright 1998 Library Journal Reviews
Wonderful smells, sounds and flavors permeate the pages of this fourth outing for bedraggled Denver lawyer Luis Montez (following The Last Client of Luis Montez). While resting his shattered knee in Mexico, Luis meets young beauty Rachel Espinoza. The aspiring writer gives him her manuscript to read, then disappears. After California PI Conrad "Rad" Valdez shows up in Denver looking for Espinoza and her manuscript, Montez finds himself following an intriguing path through Chicano myth, history and literature into a volatile present. Ramos melds the adopted Espinoza's storied patrician California family; Rad's brash young ignorance of his own culture; and Montez's immersion in the complex life of Denver's large Chicano community, from youth gangs to poets. As Rad's search for the missing and mysterious Rachel continues to intrude, Montez also has to probe the death of a client and determine whether he was the victim of a hit-and-run or murder disguised as an accident. One or both of these investigations is bothering someone enough to threaten Montez's life. Ramos succeeds brilliantly in marrying style and substance to form a seamlessly entertaining novel whose inconclusive finale is made palatable by characters and scenes deeply etched with admirable brevity and skill. (May) Copyright 1998 Publishers Weekly Reviews
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