Mission Road

Wisecracking San Antonio private eye Tres Navarre has some questionable pals. One of them shows up on his doorstep right after committing a murder. Moments later, cops arrive, not because of the pal's crime, but because his wife, a decorated policewoman, has been killed. Of course, Tres can't just let the chips fall where they may, and thereby hangs this tale. Tom Stechschulte gets mixed reviews for his performance here. He's got the tone down and the humor. His fully voiced characters are vivid. But he is not always paying attention and, therefore, glosses over key plot points and important moments. He lulls when he ought to excite. It's work concentrating on his voice. Y.R. (c) AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine

May 16, 2005
The past collides explosively with the present in Edgar-winner Riordan's relatively weak sixth Tres Navarre novel (after 2004's Southtown
) when Navarre's boyhood friend, reformed criminal Ralph Arguello, appears on his doorstep wearing a blood-soaked guayabera
barely one step ahead of the San Antonio police. The cops believe Arguello's wife, cold case detective Ana DeLeon, is about to name her husband as the prime suspect in the 18-year-old unsolved murder of Franklin White, son of a local organized crime boss—and, more incredibly, that Arguello shot her to slow down the investigation. Arguello convinces Navarre he's being set up, and the two of them struggle to evade a citywide manhunt and discover the real killer's identity. Riordan jump-cuts between the present and the mid-1980s to tell the story of White's murder and to provide background for the main characters, including Ana's mother Lucia, one of the city's first female cops. While the parallel narrative adds much needed depth, it dampens the pace and momentum. But the book's biggest flaw is the sitcom-like familiarity of the characters, including Navarre himself—the self-deprecating, wise-cracking PI who could only exist as a fictional trope. Agent, Gina Maccoby
.