The Last Client of Luis Montez

Celebrating the successful acquittal of his latest client, Chicano lawyer and former activist Luis Montez is stunned when the client is killed the following day, an event that results in Luis's own arrest for murder.

Life looks good to Luis Montez, the Chicano lawyer introduced in The Ballad of Rocky Ruiz, who has just scored a surprising courtroom victory. Denver police and prosecutors thought they had an easy case against drug suspect Jimmy Esch, but Montez discovers an unconstitutional search and seizure that allows his client to walk. Within hours, though, Montez's outlook sours. Esch is murdered, and Montez, who find the body, quickly becomes the prime suspect of resentful cops. His only alibi is Esch's enigmatic sister Lisa, who had invited Montez to have a drink on the evening of the murder. When Lisa disappears, the lawyer realizes that he must uncover his own exculpating evidence. After hitchhiking west to question a cop involved in the Esch arrest, Montez returns to Denver to dodge police and smoke out Esch's killer. All the while, he and his family are strained by his elderly father's illness. Denver Legal Aid attorney Ramos's finely crafted tales contribute a welcome Hispanic voice to the mystery genre.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

It's a great day for Denver attorney Luis Montez when his well-connected client Jimmy Esch, charged with cocaine possession, walks on a technicality--arresting officer Thomas Strayhorn changes his account of the bust on the stand--and Luis, still recovering from his secretary/lover Evangelina's defection, lets Jimmy's sister Lisa talk him into bed. But the next day is not so good, with Strayhorn killed in an accident, Jimmy stabbed to death, Lisa vanished, and the cops, who figure that Luis suborned Strayhorn's perjury on the stand and is now covering his tracks after Jimmy panicked, looking for Luis with warrants for homicide and kidnapping. Naturally, Luis does just what any stand-up guy would do in his situation: jumps bail, wrestles a gun from the trucker who offers him a ride out of town, steals said truck, and takes it on the lam to San Diego and an unrevealing conversation with Strayhorn's partner, bad cop Ben Martinez. But if Martinez isn't after Jimmy's share of the Esch family fortune, and Luis, despite what the cops think, isn't either, then who is? More urgently, how do the crimes Luis is unjustly accused of compare to the ones he's actually committed? Ramos trades the intensity of Luis's first two cases (The Ballad of Gato Guerrero, 1994, etc.) for nonstop, pleasantly incredible action. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Luis Montez, lawyer, activist, and one of the last honest men left in Denver, Colorado, has taken on the defense of Jimmy Esch, a spoiled rich kid who's been picked up once too often on drug charges. The case is a disaster from the beginning: key evidence is disallowed by the court; the arresting cop dies in a mysterious accident; and several other key witnesses disappear. Then the biggest disaster of all hits: Jimmy is found murdered, and Luis is fingered as the killer. Plenty more goes wrong, but with the encouragement of his family and the ex-wife he's never stopped loving, Luis decides to fight, going undercover to discover who really killed Jimmy. In an adventure that takes him from Colorado to California and from the moneyed ranks of high society to the depraved lives of prostitutes and drug addicts, Luis finally wins back his good name and more. Ramos tells a gripping story with panache and humor, offering an inventive plot, a cast of appealingly oddball characters, and a refreshing and likable hero. Emily Melton