Jemez Spring

Jemez Spring
Author: Rudolfo A. Anaya
Publisher:
Total Pages: 312
Release: 2005
Genre: Fiction
ISBN:

Private detective Sonny Baca enters a deadly race against time when his investigation of the drowning death of the governor of New Mexico leads him to the realization that his old enemy Raven in back at work and has planted a bomb near the Los Alamos National Laboratories.

Zia Summer

Zia Summer
Author: Rudolfo Anaya
Publisher: Open Road Media
Total Pages: 353
Release: 2015-06-02
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1504011813

A Chicano PI hunts his cousin’s killer in “a compelling thriller [with] a deep-seated respect for the traditions of a people and a culture” (Booklist). The great-grandson of a legendary lawman and gunfighter, thirty-year-old Sonny Baca hopes he possesses even a tenth of El Bisabuelo’s courage. But instead of cleaning up New Mexico by hunting down dangerous desperadoes, the struggling PI looks for missing persons and deadbeat husbands. The game changes when his cousin Gloria—the first woman Sonny ever loved—is brutally slain. Her corpse is found drained of blood. A zia sun sign, the symbol on the New Mexican flag, is carved on her stomach. Gloria’s husband, Frank Dominic, a politician making a run for mayor of Albuquerque, has a powerful motive for murder. But Gloria wasn’t the first victim. A year earlier, another woman was slain in the exact same way. Is a serial killer on the loose? Or is this the handiwork of some satanic cult? Feeling his cousin’s spirit crying out for justice, Sonny and his girlfriend begin a search that takes them across New Mexico’s polluted South Valley to an environmental compound in the mountains. As Sonny moves closer to the truth, he uncovers a chilling connection between his past and a very real and present evil . . .

Shaman Winter

Shaman Winter
Author: Rudolfo Anaya
Publisher: Open Road Media
Total Pages: 361
Release: 2015-06-02
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 150401183X

A New Mexican shaman and PI is up against a shape-shifting adversary who haunts his worst nightmares, in a “fascinating and absolutely eerie” mystery (Thrilling Detective). After a savage confrontation with his archenemy, Sonny Baca is confined to a wheelchair. The doctors don’t know if he’ll ever walk again—and now the Chicano PI is plagued by disturbing dreams of his female ancestors being abducted. The reality is even more chilling. In present-day Santa Fe, the mayor’s sixteen-year-old daughter has disappeared. The four black feathers found on Consuelo Romero’s bed confirm Sonny’s fears: Three more girls will go missing before Raven’s master plan becomes a terrifying reality. A charismatic, chameleonlike power broker who also possesses a shaman’s gifts, Raven lures radical environmentalists into committing terrorist acts under the guise of antinuclear protests. But his true agenda is to bring down Sonny once and for all. By obliterating Sonny’s dreams—the portal into the spirit world—he will destroy his past and his future. The only way to fight back is for Sonny to enter Raven’s own dream state. But can he rid the world of an evil that refuses to die? Rich in atmosphere and setting, this stellar series offers both edge-of-your-seat mystery and one man’s journey into the complex landscape of the soul.

The Sonny Baca Novels

The Sonny Baca Novels
Author: Rudolfo Anaya
Publisher: Open Road Media
Total Pages: 1095
Release: 2016-10-25
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1504041453

Four suspenseful southwestern mysteries featuring a Chicano PI in New Mexico, by the “extraordinary” author of Bless Me, Ultima (Los Angeles Times Book Review). These four novels starring detective Sonny Baca are set against the terrain of the American Southwest, blending its Spanish, Mexican, and Native American cultures. Zia Summer: Sonny Baca’s cousin Gloria is brutally slain, her body found drained of blood with a Zia sun sign—the symbol on the New Mexican flag—carved on her stomach. His quest to find her killer leads Baca across New Mexico’s diverse South Valley to an environmental compound and a terrifying brujo. Rio Grande Fall: A woman plummets to her death from a hot air balloon during Albuquerque’s famous Balloon Fiesta—and Baca recognizes it as no accident. Shaman Winter: Baca, confined to a wheelchair after a violent encounter, is haunted by chilling dreams, but has no choice but to go to work when the Santa Fe mayor’s teenage daughter disappears and the trail leads to a charismatic and dangerous shaman. Jemez Spring: A high-profile murder ignites a hotbed of political treachery and terrorist threats that take Baca to Los Alamos, pitting him against a formidable foe—and a nuclear bomb. Unrelentingly suspenseful, with vivid details of the physical and spiritual landscape of northern New Mexico, these mysteries are perfect for fans of Margaret Coel or James D. Doss and star “a fascinating hero” (Edmonton Journal).

Rio Grande Fall

Rio Grande Fall
Author: Rudolfo Anaya
Publisher: Open Road Media
Total Pages: 368
Release: 2015-06-02
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1504011821

A New Mexico PI tries to stop a cult leader’s murderous rampage in “a fascinating hybrid of detective story, adventure yarn, and shamanistic magic.” —Kirkus Reviews The world-famous International Balloon Fiesta of Albuquerque is one of the city’s most eagerly anticipated annual events and its biggest moneymaker. But when a woman plunges to her death from one of the balloons—foreshadowed by Sonny Baca’s vision of a body plummeting from the sky—Sonny’s sure it’s murder. The dead woman was the chief witness to testify against the cult implicated in the murder-for-hire of Sonny’s cousin Gloria, whose death still haunts him. In addition to motive, Sonny finds means and opportunity: a homeless family who saw someone push Veronica Worthy out of the hot-air balloon. Worthy was one of the four wives of Raven, leader of the sun cult, and a dangerous, shamanlike criminal who’s supposed to be dead. But the four black feathers found on the corpse are his calling card—clues to let Sonny know he’s alive and kicking. And his murder spree isn’t over. Now, led by his spirit guides, Sonny must race to stop a vengeful madman and save the woman he loves. From the American Book Award–winning author, this is “a completely entertaining mystery novel [that] offers two parallel lands of enchantment” (Booklist).

Serafina's Stories

Serafina's Stories
Author: Rudolfo Anaya
Publisher: Open Road Media
Total Pages: 167
Release: 2015-06-02
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1504011791

This innovative novel combines Spanish folktales with Native American legends to create a captivating Southwestern version of The Arabian Nights. Like Scheherezade, who ensured her survival by telling her royal husband stories, the title character in Rudolfo Anaya’s creative retelling of The Arabian Nights must entertain the recently widowed governor with legends of Nueva Mexicana, or she and her fellow captives will die. With fresh snow covering the high peaks of Sangre de Cristo, a group of native dissidents prepare for revolt. In seventeenth-century Santa Fe, insurrection against a colony of the king of Spain is punishable by death. A Spaniard loyal to the governor names twelve conspirators. One of them is a young woman. Raised in a mission church, fifteen-year-old Serafina speaks excellent Spanish and knows many of her country’s traditional folktales. She and the governor strike a bargain: Each evening, she will tell him a cuento. If he likes it, he will release one prisoner the following day. The twelve tales recounted here mirror the struggle of a divided country. They include the social and political symbolism behind “Beauty and the Beast” and retell “Cinderella” as “Miranda’s Gift.” Interspersed with these timeless cuentos is the story of Serafina herself, and that of a people battling to preserve a vanishing way of life under the long shadow of the Inquisition.

Tortuga

Tortuga
Author: Rudolfo Anaya
Publisher: Open Road Media
Total Pages: 221
Release: 2015-06-02
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1504011805

American Book Award Winner: A novel of a New Mexico teenager’s journey of physical and spiritual recovery from the author of Bless Me, Ultima. When the story opens, the eponymous hero of Rudolfo Anaya’s novel is in an ambulance en route to a hospital for crippled children in the New Mexican desert. A poor boy from Albuquerque, sixteen-year-old Tortuga takes his name from the odd, turtle-shaped mountain that is rumored to possess miraculous curative powers. Tortuga is paralyzed, and not even his mother’s fervent prayers can heal him. But under the mountain’s watchful gaze, with the support of fellow patients, he begins the Herculean task of breaking out of his shell and becoming whole again. Drawn from personal experience and imbued with the phantasmagorical vision quests that distinguish Anaya’s work, Tortuga is a joyful, life-sustaining book about hope, faith, friendship, and love that celebrates the triumph of the human spirit in the physical world. “An extraordinary storyteller.” —Los Angeles Times Book Review

The Silence of the Llano

The Silence of the Llano
Author: Rudolfo A. Anaya
Publisher: Tonatiuh International
Total Pages: 198
Release: 1982
Genre: Fiction
ISBN:

A collection of stories by the renowned New Mexico author.

Bad News for McEnroe

Bad News for McEnroe
Author: Bill Scanlon
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Total Pages: 251
Release: 2014-01-28
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1466863390

A shockingly honest memoir about life on the pro tennis circuit during its golden years by one of McEnroe's and Connors' chief rivals, Bill Scanlon. In the golden age of tennis, when players were just learning how to become media personalities, men like John McEnroe, Jimmy Connors, Björn Borg and Ivan Lendl ruled the court. In a tell-all memoir, former top 10 seeded tennis star and chief McEnroe rival, Bill Scanlon, presents an unfettered look at the good old days of tennis when some of the most colorful (and infamous) players in history went head-to-head and the game was changed forever. Bad News For McEnroe is in part a revelation of the feud between McEnroe and the author that began when they were teenagers, but the essence of this book are the wonderful and surprising on- and off-the-court high jinks of such notable players as Guillermo Vilas, Borg, McEnroe, Ilie Nastase and Connors, all of whom Scanlan played and knew intimately, from locker room fights to on-court breakdowns and blow-ups. A story that could not have come from anyone but a true insider, Scanlon's tale of life on the pro tennis circuit will shock and delight tennis fans everywhere.