Tequila Sunset

Starred review from April 28, 2014
Despite the uninspired title, Hawken delivers on the promise of his debut, The Dead Women of Juárez, with his outstanding second character-driven crime novel set along the Texas-Mexico border. Having just finished a four-year prison stint for armed robbery, Felipe “Flip” Morales is back home in El Paso, Tex., trying to abide by the terms of his parole. A Latino gang called the Aztecas protected Flip in prison, and now he owes a debt to local gang chieftain José Martinez. Meanwhile, law enforcement agencies have targeted Martinez for a massive sting intended to cripple the violent gang. Police officer Cristina Salas (a single mom with a special-needs son) leads the efforts in El Paso, while Mexican federal agent Matías Segura directs a task force against Los Aztecas in Ciudad Juárez, where the cartels have terrorized the citizens. When Flip becomes a confidential informant against Martinez, the stakes quickly get high, and it becomes clear that he may not live to marry Graciela, the beautiful girl he’s fallen for, or to see their baby born. Hawken doesn’t hit a false note. Agent: Svetlana Pironko, Author Rights Agency.

May 1, 2014
The border between El Paso and Jurez is a conduit for drugs moving from Mexico to the U.S. and for guns moving in the opposite direction. Hawken sets this tense thriller on that violence-riddled fault line, following the activities of Flip Morales, an ex-con reluctantly working for the Azteca gang; Christina Salas, an El Paso cop in the anti-gang unit; and Matias Segura, a Mexican federal agent who has teamed with the FBI to bring down Los Aztecas on both sides of the border. The drug war wears an agonizingly human face in the drama that unfolds, as Hawken shows us the personal lives of his main characters and makes clear the toll that border life takes on the individuals trapped in its web. Finally, though, this is a thriller and a very good one. Tension builds inexorably, as we creep closer to the inevitable final conflagration. Hawken's understated but razor-sharp prose never gets in the way of the building tension, but the focus remains not on issues but on the people who are pulled into conflict, as if by the magnetic field of the border itself. Powerful stuff.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)