Big Red Tequila (Conclusion)

The occasional description of Navarre’s use of tai chi on his adversaries is noteworthy.  (And apparently authentic; the “About the Author” blurb facing the last page of the story says, “He has practiced tai chi chuan for five years…” I almost find it odd that none of the infighting knowledge has found its way into the two Percy Jackson novels I have read; I guess when you have a ballpoint pen that morphs into a magic sword, the martial arts take a back seat!)  About Navarre’s final encounter with Kellin, he says, “I didn’t think he was carrying, but I couldn’t give him time to pull a weapon.  Kellin stepped back and I stuck to him like glue.  That’s the most disconcerting thing about fighting a tai chi opponent; you step back, they step forward; you advance, they retreat; you swing right, they disappear to the left.  The whole time they’re only a few inches away, but you can’t connect a punch.  And they touch you almost the whole time … It’s very annoying.” 

The various clues that he follows up on in order to be at the right places at the right times are just enough to keep his investigation from stalling out.  Locating the site where Lillian is being held by her kidnappers is facilitated by the accumulation of cement dust around the wheel casings of a car involved in the case which means … the local cement plant.  Nice detective work, Tres – except it’s his friend Ralph, not Tres, who makes the deduction and has to point it out to our hero.  But this is realistic; in real detective work, investigators often depend on evidence that falls into their laps while they are diligently following dead-end leads.  The novelized true crime classic, In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote [see our August, 2012 book] points this out beautifully. 

Navarre’s relationships with the ladies continue to be complicated.  Not only is Maia apparently out of the picture, with Tres’s call to her being answered by a male voice, but he effectively puts his romance with Lillian on ice by pretending to be unforgiving about her real reasons for bringing him back to San Antonio.  We’re left with the impression that he just needs some time to get used to being on his own again now that his father’s murder has been resolved and he no longer feels the obsession with that. 

It’s nice irony when we find that the crime boss, Guy White turns out to be uninvolved after all, especially after all the pestering he had received from Tres.  Can we assume that if he actually had been involved, he would have had Tres “rubbed out” very soon after that first encounter?  The fact that he actually helps Tres in small ways is even more delicious, particularly at the end when Tres returns the favor by giving him one of the discs with incriminating evidence against the local politicians who have made White’s live difficult for years.  Tres cleverly arranges things so that his potential enemies all have an interest in keeping him healthy.  No wonder there are a number of sequels to this storyline!  The next book in the series, The Widower’s Two-Step, will be on my shelf very soon!

 

A very nice concluding touch at the very end has his pal Ralph coming to the rescue when he finds himself without wheels to get home:  “‘Hey, vato,’ someone said behind me.  I turned and saw Ralph leaning out the window of his maroon Lincoln and grinning like a fiend.  ‘You lose your wheels man?’ … Ralph laughed and showed me a bottle of Herradura Anejo and a six-pack of Big Red.  ‘You still need friends like these?’ he asked.  ‘Only more than anything,’ I told him, and I got into the car.”

December’s book of the month; “Shakespeare’s Christmas,” by Charlaine Harris. 

(First post on December 6th over Chapters 1-2!)

If you are familiar with the Sookie Stackhouse (“True Blood”) novels, you know how great the writing is.  This series is a little more “hard-core mystery”, without the supernatural twists of Harris’ other books, but still a lot of fun!  Merry Christmas!

 

"Fresher, more unusual, than any other mystery I've read lately."
--The Washington Post Book World

"This one works on every level. The writing and plotting are first-rate."
--The Washington Times

"A seamless story... In her Lily Bard novels, Charlaine Harris blends a noirish atmosphere with a traditional mystery."
--Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel