A Venom Beneath the Skin

Informationen zum Autor Marcos M. Villatoro is the author of several books of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction. The Los Angeles Times Book Review named his nationally acclaimed Home Killings as one of the Best Books of 2001. It won the Silver Medal from Foreword Magazine and First Prize in the Latino Literary Hall of Fame. His other books include the Pushcart Prize nominee The Holy Spirit of My Uncle's Cojones (also an Independent Publishers Book Award finalist), They Say That I Am Two: Poems , the novel A Fire in the Earth, and the memoir Walking to La Milpa: Living in Guatemala with Armies, Demons, Abrazos, and Death. After years of living in Central America, Marcos attended the Iowa Writers' Workshop. In 1998, he and his family moved to Los Angeles, where Marcos holds the Fletcher Jones Endowed Chair in Writing at Mount St. Mary's College. A regular commentator for National Public Radio's "Day to Day," Marcos also hosts a book show called "Shelf Life" for Pacifica Radio. Klappentext Latina detective Romilia Chacón is a marvelous heroine! one who clings to her heritage! her son! and a determination to do her new job in Los Angeles better than anyone else. She has to-because inside the FBI! Romilia is the only link to a legendary criminal who may have just taken down one of their own.... FBI agent Chip Pierce was found poisoned! a single word-cabrón-carved into his stomach. The only suspect is the infamous Tekún Umán! a seductive and brilliant Guatemalan drug dealer who once got under Romilia's skin-and never quite left. Now! skirting official regulations to begin a personal hunt for Tekún! Romilia will stumble into a world where terror! fanaticism! and murder collide. What awaits her is a shocking new evil-and the ultimate threat to everything she holds dear. Special Agent Romilia Chacon drives her old Taurus out of the neighborhood of canals of Venice, California, and toward the freeway. Venice Boulevard has little traffic just past midnight. It's a straight shot of green lights all the way to the 405. She does not speed. There is no need for that. I can see her easily, even without the streetlights, from the roof of this old apartment building. The Steiner Nighthunters with their twelve by fifty-six range can peer into near total darkness. The binoculars, manufactured by a private company for the U.S. Army and used by the high military command in the Iraq war, and bought at Internet prices (eight hundred forty dollars, a steal ), make Romilia's face large and sharp. She does not cry. This does not surprise me; she's not in love. She has a lover. The man who lives on the banks of these canals, in one of the smaller homes but one that he can barely afford. Special Agent Samuel "Chip" Pierce. Living off a Fed's salary, bringing in a little extra income due to his wounds, Chip can manage the payments, along with the help of an inheritance; and he means to enjoy it. The loss of body parts has that effect on some men: Either you drink yourself away or you slam down the pain pills or the heroin or all three; or maybe you get existential, you decide hey, they took my leg, my eye, they took a chunk of my hand, fuck it; I'm living. I'm going to live, and if I can, I'll live in one of the nicer areas in Los Angeles. Sure, it's not the real Venice, no gondolas plying the waterways; it's just L.A. with canals running by the houses, but it's expensive and that's what Chip wanted and I can't disagree. I understand Pierce's perspective. I know how much it costs to ease pain. But I have become an existentialist, too; I've learned that pain means life and that death is the absence of pain and sometimes I'm not sure which one to choose so I've chosen this. I lean against the concrete banister of the roof, adjust the Nighthunters so as to look up the street, through the space between two jacaranda trees and into the w...

Product details

• Authors: Marcos Villatoro
• Publisher: Dell Publishing Inc.
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback
• Released: 28.02.2006
• EAN: 9780440242222
• ISBN: 978-0-440-24222-2
• No. of pages: 320
• Dimensions: 108 mm x 174 mm x 22 mm