Publisher's Synopsis
Fall 1960, a vacation down south to Texas, an opportunity for Bobby Olsen, PI from New York, to meet the ma and pa of his sidekick Carol Rios. The only concern should be to smile broad and shake hands firm. But trouble follows the couple like summer follows spring.Bullets greet Bobby and Carol amid the handshakes, a dead body interrupts a stroll around the Rios' ranch, and sentences seem missing from the dialogues with Eugene and Alicia Rios. Soon an array of local characters amble on-stage amid the dust and heat. A local detective fighting the near-lost good fight, a coffee house owner with fantasies to partner Bobby on blood-soaked adventures, Papa Rios' rival Texan businessman in town with ambitions to be the next mayor, senator or President, and a young woman who oozes more danger than any collection of New York hoodlums Bobby has crossed in his two years of investigating the lowest of lowlife.The body counts rise, a family relative disappears, and Bobby and Carol are alone in a town where they barely speak the same lingo as the locals. The border, one stride of a cowboy boot away, offers the threat of a whole new country awash with its own crime waves.With clues in short supply, Bobby fears his introduction to Carol's family might be remembered as the time the Rios' fortune seeped away for good. Time runs short. A life hangs in the balance. One desperate gamble is the last option with the marked cards.
