El Camino del Rio - Hardcover

Sanderson, Jim

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0826319904 ISBN 13: 9780826319906

Publisher: University of New Mexico Press, 1998

Synopsis

Presidio, Texas is hard country and hardship duty for U.S. Border Patrol officer Dolph Martinez. When circling buzzards lead him to a corpse in Red Wing boots with a .22 bullet hole in an expensive haircut, Dolph realizes this is no ordinary norteño trying to cross the deserted border from Mexico. Is the dead man connected to Sister Quinn's efforts to help Central American political refugees find sanctuary? Is Sister Quinn, a nun who practices curanderismo, mixed up in a smuggling operation? On the border--El Camino del Rio--men and women on both sides of the river and both sides of the law think they know each other's business, but nothing is what it seems. And it is Dolph's job and his destiny to unravel the mystery. This gritty, atmospheric story, the first novel to win the Frank Waters Southwest Writing Contest, has the harsh power and heat of the Texas desert.

"A richly imagined and terrifically realized novel. Complex and humane, always surprising, it rings as true as the winter light across the southern desert."--James Crumley

"Mr. Sanderson is especially good at contrasting the clarity and austere natural beauty of the Chihuahuan desert with the murky, Orson Welles aura that envelops human society there."--Tom Pilkington, Dallas Morning News

"[A] lean and lyrical first novel."--Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book

"Makes the gritty, thankless landscape of the border come alive, from the relentless heat to the failed hopes."--Paul Skenazy, Washington Post Book World

About this title

About the Author

Jim Sanderson lives in Beaumont, Texas, where he teaches at Lamar State University which honored him as the 2002 Distinguished Faculty Lecturer.

Reviews

Sanderson makes the gritty, thankless landscape of the border come alive, from the relentless heat to the failed hopes.

Border Patrol agent Dolph Martinez watches for illegal immigrants, dope smugglers and gun runners. The half-Anglo, half-Mexican Dolph often feels caught between his responsibility as a U.S. official and his sympathy for the poor Hispanics whom he must arrest or take back across the river. (El Camino del Rio is Texas Highway 170, which runs near the Rio Grande.) Dolph finds a smuggler shot to death and discovers in the man's hand a glass vial filled with blue liquid. Four years earlier, a mysterious nun called Sister Quinn found Dolph, shot in the stomach and lying near death in a canyon, and gave him a similar vial to hold as she dragged him to where he could get medical attention. Sister Quinn was frequently on the scene of border trouble. Her followers considered her saintly, but Dolph suspects her of complicity in the illegal border businesses of Vincent Fuentes, a wanted man on both sides of the river. Compounding his confusion, Dolph falls hard for Ariel Alves, a recently arrived resort manager who has a puzzling relationship with Sister Quinn. Sanderson presents Dolph as a fully dimensioned character, a credible combination of grit and grace in the face of troubling ambiguities in a moral borderland.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Narrator Dolph Martinez and partner Pat Cromer, attached to the Border Patrol out of Presidio, TX, spend most of their time looking for illegal immigrants and returning them to Mexico. Lately, though, they have found two men?apparently gun-runners?shot to death. Despite Dolph's rather unorthodox lifestyle, his mixed-heritage background helps him nail the bad guy. Federal interest in the weapons, an Irish nun/curandera who harbors "wets," and local willingness to take the easy way out all provide intriguing complications. A fast narrative pace, picturesque setting, and competent prose make this a good choice for most collections. [This was the first novel to win the Frank Waters Southwest Writing Contest.?Ed.]
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
• Publication date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0826319904
• ISBN 13: 9780826319906
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 227