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Decades in the desert have made reporter Michael Callan hard as a sun-bleached skull. But mutilated migrants and his ex-flame keep causing Callan trouble ... even if they're six feet under. Mix an innocent beauty with a savage one, add an assembly of killers, thugs, and a surgeon. Stir vigorously, and you've got a bloody cocktail-lethal for an Irishman who doesn't drink. This is the first novel by Charles Kelly, an award-winning reporter for the Arizona Republic. His in-depth knowledge of criminals, reporters and the issue of illegal immigration across the Arizona-Mexico border are all perfect fodder for this shocking crime fiction debut.

At the start of Kelly's poetic first novel, Phoenix Scribe reporter Michael Callan stands at the grave of Rhea Montero, a woman he once loved who he suspects ran a crime syndicate he's investigating. A friend from Rhea's childhood, the naïve Daly Marcus, can't believe Rhea could have been a crook. Together Callan and Marcus seek the truth as murder erupts around them and they're drawn into a web of human trafficking and darker crimes. Kelly, a longtime reporter for the Arizona Republic, excels in capturing the local scene, the high desert and Phoenix itself, with such intriguing neighborhoods as the gangbanger purlieus of the West Valley, where I once heard a driver chastised because his booming car radio was drowning out a gunfight. His alter ego Callan, a legalized Irish national with a dicey past, shows potential as a series hero, but the revelations he unearths will be overly familiar to most mystery readers. (Nov.)
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