Blackout in Precinct Puerto Rico: Book Five
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'sPrecinct 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 inPrecinct Puerto Ricosadly  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--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.