Luis Montez—Denver attorney and part-time detective—has been getting his career and his life together. So how did he end up in a ditch, his car twisted and smoking nearby, a gun-wielding giant in a cowboy hat coming toward him?

The answer: his friend, Felix "Gato" Guerrero.

Trouble has always followed the larger-than-life Felix the Cat. Now it has jumped all over him. His girlfriend is the wife of a ruthless local crime lord and in spite of bullets and hit men he won't give her up. His former father-in-law blames him for a family tragedy and is bent on revenge. Worst of all, Felix is determined to remain unaware of the dangers. It's up to Montez-and not for the first time-to step in and save him.

As in his Edgar-nominated The Ballad of Rocky Ruiz, Manuel Ramos immerses readers not only in a thrilling mystery but also in the fascinating Chicano culture of the West. Fast-paced and richly textured, The Ballad of Gato Guerrero is an entertaining addition to the acclaimed Luis Montez mystery series.

MANUEL RAMOS is an attorney and a part-time professor at Metropolitan State College of Denver. His debut novel, The Ballad of Rocky Ruiz (St. Martin's, 1993), was nominated for an Edgar. His other awards include the 1994 Colorado Book Award for Fiction and the 1991 Chicano/Latino Literary Award. Three of his other Luis Montez novels-The Ballad of Gato Guerrero (St. Martin's, 1994), The Last Client of Luis Montez (St. Martin's, 1996), and Blues for the Buffalo (St. Martin's, 1997)-are forthcoming in new editions from Northwestern University Press.

"Manuel Ramos is one of the first (more will surely follow) of the new writers whose novels spring from the Chicano experience. If all are as talented as he, the prospect is pleasing, indeed." —San Diego Union-Tribune

"The evil and retribution are distributed with a hand so generous it smacks of second-novel blues, though Ramos miraculously ties up more loose ends than you'd ever have imagined." —Kirkus

"A good, swift mystery and a sharp and telling look from within at being a minority in an often-hostile majority culture." —Los Angeles Times