Blues for the Buffalo

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 several strands of Chicano culture--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)