White King by Juan Gómez-Jurado

WHITE KING by Juan Gómez-Jurado (see Red Queen and Black Wolf) is the final novel in the best-selling Antonia Scott trilogy, best read in order. Diminutive, cerebral Scott and warm-hearted, “bear” of a man Gutiérrez are wonderful foils and increasingly have come to care for and understand each other. This latest story is also filled with high stakes adventures as other Red Queens and their protectors have been killed or sabotaged. Evil Mr. White sends Antonia on a wild chase to solve or prevent murders – the price if she is not successful? Jon Gutiérrez’s life. Throughout, the writing by Gómez-Jurado is superb as shown by the following few examples. After being released from a kidnapping, Gutiérrez feels “extreme nausea, a dull persistent pain in his back … with legs as rickety as a piece of IKEA furniture.” Or about Antonia: “She's a very poor liar; on a scale of 0 to president, Antonio doesn't even make it onto the scoreboard.” Or imaginatively: “… another free tour of the most interesting parts of her psyche - in an open topped double decker bus it goes around the confusion traffic circle, the monument to rage, and betrayal square. The bus is filled with the people in her life all looking about and pointing, taking selfies.” Gómez-Jurado is so descriptive, allowing his readers to vividly picture scenes: “His eyes are on the Gurney carrying away his boss’s dead body. The rain comes down harder and the plastic wheels throw up tiny droplets as they fall into cracks in the sidewalk.” And he is cynically observant: “There are huge quantities of idiots in the world who think they're intelligent, capable of managing the national soccer team, performing open heart surgery, or solving the immigration problem. They come out with irrefutable answers on each of these topics in only a few minutes. Truly intelligent people have doubts about everything and everyone, but above all about themselves.” Start at the beginning and savor this entire trilogy. Highly recommended.

I primarily listened to the audiobook and narrator Scott Brick is excellent. His voice lends both excitement and wry humor (“It's absolutely not a good idea to drive into police headquarters at 200 kilometers an hour both because of the security barrier and the officers with assault rifles posted at the entrance so they impatiently wait their turn in the line of cars.”) to these twisty, sometimes dark adventures (“We always tell ourselves that tomorrow is another day. That we'll have time to fix things until we don't.”). Interested readers should also note that Amazon has created a Red Queen series, based on the first book.

The Last Hope by Susan Elia MacNeal

THE LAST HOPE by Susan Elia MacNeal is the final entry (after The Hollywood Spy) in the mystery series featuring Maggie Hope. That WWII era character started out thwarting an assassination attempt as a secretary for Winston Churchill and eventually received spy training which led to travels in Europe and the United States. This time, Maggie is sent to Madrid where she has a meeting with Coco Chanel and the British Ambassador to Spain in an effort to hasten the end of the war. There’s talk of possibly assassinating a scientist, double agents, and threatening police. Maggie also has to deal with personal issues and bereavement while trying to stay focused on the mission’s objectives. All in all, an excellent ending to a very popular and suspenseful mystery series. Library Journal praises it, saying, “It's sad to see the story end, but this novel, filled with MacNeal's signature character-centric plot and minute attention to historical details, does so magnificently.”

Black Wolf by Juan Gómez-Jurado

BLACK WOLF by Juan Gómez-Jurado (Red Queen) is the second action-packed novel featuring Antonia Scott and it, too, is excellent. Although diminutive in stature, Antonia is a giant in intellect, observation, and analysis; she is trained and manipulated by Mentor in her role as part of a select cadre of international law enforcement. Her partner, Jon Gutiérrez, is a large (“He is not fat …”), gay, and formerly disgraced police inspector who is very brave and loyal. Together, they are tasked with helping to find a pregnant woman on the run, Lola Moreno. As the body count mounts, Scott and Guiterrez confront the Beast (Aslan Orlov), local leader of the Russian mafia operating in Spain, near Madrid. Lola’s gunned down husband was deemed a traitor to Orlov’s organization and now Orlov is determined to find and kill Lola, so he calls in the Black Wolf, Chernaya Volchista. Readers will devour this thriller in a few days, appreciating Gómez-Jurado’s skills at narration while developing and sustaining suspense. He could easily be describing his own writing when Gómez-Jurado explains, “that's the way it is with Antonia: to get to know her, you have to fit together pieces of the puzzle with the small details you pick up on and don't blink or you'll miss it.” BLACK WOLF ends with a cliffhanger and I am eagerly awaiting the third entry in this series, The White King, (due out next Spring).  Highly recommended. 

Latinoland by Marie Arana

LATINOLAND by Marie Arana is subtitled “A Portrait of America's Largest and Least Understood Minority.” Arana, a prolific author and finalist for the National Book Award, is very honest, creative and personal in her approach to this topic. She notes that “today one in five souls on American soil claims Hispanic heritage” and “we are not a unified people.” Her efforts to share her experiences and the stories of individuals like Carolyn Curiel or Ellen Ochoa add detail. However, as even she points out “one book cannot possibly capture the whole” and this necessarily broad brush tends to cloud summary conclusions. I had expected more data to be readily available and wish that Arana had been able to include more charts and graphs in addition to the sweeping historical reflection and moving stories she shares. LATINOLAND is extremely well-researched with Arana including copious notes that comprise almost a third of the text. Both Booklist and Kirkus (“an impressively wide-ranging overview”) gave Arana’s work a starred review.

Did you know that there are plans to open a National Museum of the American Latino on the National Capital Mall in 2035? There are so many interesting written works and resources available. Examples include Harvest of Empire (revised in 2022) by Juan Gonzalez, many of the books by Héctor Tobar, and (especially for high school readers) Living Beyond Borders (2021) edited by Margarita Longoria. The much older (2013) Latino Americans from Ray Suarez was also a series on pbs; the accompanying website features ideas for lesson plans and educational materials such as updated statistics from Pew Research Center.  Numerous schools and colleges have crafted libguides for Hispanic Heritage Month; one of the most comprehensive is from Rice University’s Fondren Library. No doubt Marie Arana (who disparages Nixon’s efforts to create the original week in honor of American Hispanics) would at least encourage more conversation around these materials; as she says, “although we account for more than half of the US population growth over the last decade … it seems as if the rest of the country is perpetually in the act of discovering us.”

The Spanish Diplomat's Secret by Nev March

THE SPANISH DIPLOMAT'S SECRET by Nev March; (Murder in Old Bombay) is the latest in the Captain Jim and Lady Diana mysteries which are set in the 1890’s, involve characters with East Indian heritage, and deal with the social mores and prejudices of the times. In this case, a mysterious death occurs on an ocean liner and, as a neutral but experienced investigator, Jim is drafted into solving the why and how of a potentially explosive diplomatic death. He is truly puzzled by a lack of motive and suspects which also lent a bit of frustration to my reading. I do wish the story had moved somewhat more quickly and that Diana had a larger role throughout. Still, March produced a puzzling case and kept me guessing, too. Earlier series entries (see also Peril at the Exposition, set in Chicago) are stronger, but THE SPANISH DIPLOMAT'S SECRET still offers an entertaining diversion. And readers who enjoy the shipboard setting, may also like watching High Seas (on Netflix) which involves a mystery on an ocean liner and is set in the 1940s.

Red Queen by Juan Gómez-Jurado

RED QUEEN by Juan Gómez-Jurado received a starred review from Booklist and I was avidly recommending this fabulous international best-seller before I even finished it. This is a suspenseful, action-packed thriller featuring Antonia Scott, an extraordinarily intelligent and perceptive women who solves crimes with an elite unit. In this case (set in Madrid, Spain), she is partnered with a disgraced cop named Jon, and each struggles with some personal issues while they seek to discover who has killed a young boy, kidnapped an heiress, and threatened prominent business leaders. The killer is ruthless and Gómez-Jurado provides plenty of unexpected twists to stymie Antonia and Jon. The two gradually bond, however, as Jon thinks, “Yes, Antonia Scott is unbearable, secretive, bossy, and has terrible taste in food; she’s unpredictable and probably as mad as a hatter, or damn close to it. But.”… “The creed Jon Gutierrez is a devotee of – with candles, genuflections, and prayers – is Our Lady of Nobody Messes with My Partner.” The fast pace is aided by short chapters and the humorous comments help balance some dark events. Overall, RED QUEEN is excellent and I am eagerly waiting to see the translation of the next in this trilogy (and the forthcoming streaming version from Amazon)!