From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Corbett (_Blood of Paradise_) delivers a rich, hard-hitting epic that illuminates the violent and surreal landscapes of Central America and Mexico. After 18-year-old Roque Montalvo's uncle, Faustino, an illegal Salvadoran immigrant, is deported in an INS sweep, Roque's criminal cousin, Pablo Happy Orantes, cooks up a scheme to smuggle Faustino back to California, along with a mysterious Palestinian asylum seeker, but it involves a hefty price to Latin American thugs. Happy strikes a deal with an FBI agent, offering up a major drug dealer for his family's citizenship papers. Roque travels from California to El Salvador, where he discovers that the gangsters want him to deliver a beautiful girl about his age, Lupe, to a vicious border crime leader. Roque and Lupe embark on an unforgettable journey north, pursued by banditos, police, and the FBI. Of course, Roque falls for Lupe and vows to help her escape a dismal fate. Fans of Luis Alberto Urrea and Don Winslow alike will be richly rewarded. (Mar.)
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From
Starred Review Eighteen-year-old Roque Montalvo must travel from Californiaβs East Bay to El Salvador to help Tio Faustino illegally reenter the U.S. Faustino has been arrested in an illegal-immigration sweep in Oakland and immediately deported. Faustinoβs son has made the arrangements for passage with MS-13, the Salvadoran multinational gang. But Roque soon learns that he must also shepherd a mysterious Arab as well as rescue Lupe, a beautiful, terrified, embittered, young Salvadoran woman, who is to be given to a psychotic MS-13 lieutenant en route. The journey is perilous, but so, author Corbett makes clear, is life for illegal aliens in California. Corbett is covering familiar ground (Blood of Paradise, 2007), but in this powerful, evocative, character-driven novel, he has written what should be a breakout success. What drives Corbettβs characters to risk death, violent gangs, ICE, armed βMinutemen,β deportation, and life as fugitives in the U.S. As the Arab says to Lupe: βYes, there is little hope in the world. But without America, there is none. Despite everything, you will have a chance.β Readers who devour and then forget formulaic crime novels wonβt soon forget this one. --Thomas Gaughan