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Product Description
Near Rincón, Puerto Rico, 1987.
Even a tropical paradise may have its little murders.
In his years as sheriff of Angustias, a small town nestled in Puerto Rico's mountainous heart, Luis Gonzalo has seen his share of violence. People kill for love and money in Angustias just as they do anywhere else. But it is during a visit to his wife's family in the seaside town of Rincón that Gonzalo encounters his greatest challenge.
A midnight call brings Gonzalo to a beach where bodies are washing ashore, victims of a shipwreck, victims of the illegal traffic in humans from the Dominican Republic. When he discovers evidence that the shipwreck was no accident, that the ship's captain was murdered, Gonzalo's life is threatened. When he discovers proof that Puerto Rican police were involved in the deaths of the illegal immigrants, the lives of his wife and children are threatened. The murder of one of his deputies brings Gonzalo no closer to the bottom of this mystery-- a mystery no other law enforcement agency wants to help him solve.
The first in a series of police procedural mysteries featuring Luis Gonzalo and the citizens and cops of Angustias, Precinct Puerto Rico: Book One is a brilliant beginning to a continuing story from a long overdue locale.
Amazon.com Review
Helping recover bodies after a shipwreck off Puerto Rico's west coast, Luis Gonzalo isn't surprised to learn that the deceased are illegal immigrants from the Dominican Republic. But he is startled to discover a murder victim among the drowned. When that corpse subsequently vanishes into the trunk of a mysterious police cruiser, Gonzalo, who serves as sheriff in the hill hamlet of Angustias, is understandably curious. He just doesn't anticipate the violence that will follow his inquiries, in Steven Torres's Precinct Puerto Rico: Book One.
"We are a small town with little excitement," one of Gonzalo's deputies says of Angustias. That, though, was before Nestor Ochoa, a corrupt San Juan police sergeant, had heard of the place. Tasked by his never-identified bosses in the alien-smuggling biz to stop Gonzalo's search for the missing dead man, Ochoa tries threatening the sheriff's family. When that doesn't work, he arranges a daylight robbery of Angustias' bank, apparently hoping to cover up one crime with another. But the assault goes disastrously awry, only increasing Gonzalo's determination to bring Ochoa down. Torres is at his best when providing quirky dimensions to his small-town players--not all of them as likable as the change-resistant Gonzalo. He's less successful at exploiting the singular character and history of his Caribbean setting, and the cinematic fireworks in Precinct Puerto Rico sadly overwhelm what might have been a politically conscious police procedural, centered around the desperation of Dominicans to share in the American Dream. --J. Kingston Pierce
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