Publishers Weekly Reviews
January 19, 2009
Hit List: The Best of Latino Mystery
BYLINE: Staff
SECTION: REVIEWS; Fiction; Pg. 44
LENGTH: 169 words
Hit List: The Best of Latino Mystery Edited by Sarah Cortez and Liz Martínez. Arte Público, $19.95 paper (200p) ISBN 978-1-55885-543-4 (buy from Amazon or Barnes & Noble)
Billed as the first-ever anthology of mystery short stories by Latino authors, this volume will disappoint readers looking for fiction examining distinctively Latino themes. Of the 17 selections, the best is Edgar-finalist Manuel Ramos's "The Skull of Pancho Villa," a terse, twisty tale of theft purporting to tell the real story of the fate of that relic. A.E. Roman's smart-ass New York City PI, Chico Santana, gets a nice lead-in to his debut novel, Chinatown Angel (Reviews, Jan. 12), in a tale of revenge, "Under the Bridge." While Lucha Corpi's "Hollow Point at the Synapses" may be the first story told from the perspective of a bullet traveling from a sniper's rifle to the target's head, that novelty comes across more gimmicky than clever. Other contributors include such established writers in the genre as Mario Acevedo, Carolina García-Aguilera and Steve Torres. (Mar.)
And here's the Pub Weekly review for Chinatown Angel
Chinatown Angel A.E. Roman. Minotaur, $24.95 (304p) ISBN 978-0-312-37500-3 (buy from Amazon or Barnes & Noble)
A plausible, fast-moving plot propels Roman's refreshing debut, set in present-day New York City. Chico Santana, an engaging, wisecracking PI, who's just beginning to pull himself together after his wife, Ramona, threw him out, takes on a routine case to track down a teenage girl that turns out to be anything but. Suspicious of the men who retain him, childhood friend Albert Garcia and B-movie actor-producer Kirk Atlas, Santana hooks up with their attractive servant, Pilar Menendez, only to see her pushed off the roof of her Astoria apartment building shortly after he leaves her. Santana's report of this crime leads to his abduction by Atlas's creepy father, a wealthy pervert reminiscent of Chinatown's Noah Cross. Roman has a nice satirical touch (e.g., Ramona once dragged Santana to “a mixed media thing based on the music in the movie The Taking of Pelham One Two Three”). Fans of Reed Farrel Coleman's Moe Prager will find a lot to like. (Mar.)
CJLA Author