cover image The Ballad of Gato Guerrero

The Ballad of Gato Guerrero

Manuel Ramos. St. Martin's Press, $18.95 (183pp) ISBN 978-0-312-10935-6

In his second appearance, Denver-based Latino lawyer Luis Montez, introduced in The Ballad of Rocky Ruiz , again plunges into the past, revealed here in extensive flashbacks. Felix ``Gato'' Guerrero belongs to Luis's beer-drinking, wild-running teen years. Although Luis's lifestyle has been tempered by age and his painful divorce, Felix still kicks back on occasion--with booze, eight-ball, gambling and fistfights. The death of his daughter, the subsequent suicide of his wife and a harrowing stint in Vietnam has left Felix with ghosts to exorcise along with his new enemies. Felix calls on Luis to save him and Elizabeth, his sultry new love who is also the wife of Trini Anglin, a Latino mobster with a jealous heart. Also anxious to get his hands on Felix is Edwin Talmage, his onetime father-in-law, a bitter, well-connected man. Luis fights to keep Felix alive, while also trying to save the hoodlum son of another client. Luis is a remarkably upbeat soul in a world awash in domestic violence, gang and police brutality and the almost continual antagonism he faces as a Latino in a white world. His vision is unusual in crime fiction and his first-person story is informed with nearly tangible emotion. Ramos is developing a powerful, distinctive series. (May)