Sam Hawken

Camaro Espinoza is 'the deadliest female protagonist since Jon Land's Caitlin Strong and Stieg Larsson's Lisbeth Salander' (Booklist). Camaro doesn't particularly want to get involved with other people's lives, other people's problems. But she can tell that the woman in her gym is looking for help. And when she learns that Faith has a stalker, she agrees to give her a few defense lessons. She's not expecting the stalker to become so violent so quickly. Or to have been hired by someone. Faith, it seems, has made some serious enemies... and now they're going after Camaro too. They're about to find out that that was a mistake.

Camaro Espinoza is 'the deadliest female protagonist since Jon Land's Caitlin Strong and Stieg Larsson's Lisbeth Salander' (Booklist). Camaro Espinoza is a former combat medic whose past is shrouded in mystery. Having finally achieved a measure of calm and anonymity, Camaro receives a distress call from her sister Annabel. Living a modest life in a small town in California, Annabel has become trapped in an abusive relationship with a bad man named Jake Collier who threatens to make her daughter his next victim. Camaro rushes across the country to defend her sister for what may be the last time. For Jake has a sibling of his own, an ex-Marine named Lukas who is every bit as unhinged as Camaro is uncompromising. For all Camaro's stealth and wit, she can only last so long against such relentless force. As a pair of federal marshals pick up the trail, and a bounty hunter with a debt to settle closes in, Camaro's smart enough to know that standing her ground is the last thing she should do. But if there's one thing she can't do, it's walk away - even with a freight train like Lukas barreling towards her.

Meet Camaro Espinoza. She's spent her whole life protecting people: first at home, then in the army. Sometimes that means leaving bodies behind. She'll be the best ally you ever have - but you don't want to be on her bad side. Right now she's running a boat off the Miami shore, trying to keep a low profile. But then a man called Parker comes to her offering good money, and bad trouble. Camaro doesn't want to get involved, but Parker has a daughter who'll suffer if she refuses to help. When the job goes badly wrong, Camaro finds herself in the midst of double crosses, international intrigue and scattered bullets. She's determined to save the girl's life... but it may be at the cost of her own.

Stories and essays by Ken Bruen, Jim Cornelius, Garnett Elliott, Bradley Mason Hamlin, Sam Hawken, Mike MacLean, Craig McDonald, Manuel Ramos, Steve Rogers, Tom Russell, James Sallis, Mart n Solares, John Stickney, Dave Zeltserman. Edited by Craig McDonald Welcome to La Frontera: You're headed way out west this time, intrepid reader, far past where you've dared go before. Your troubled guides along these dusty, bloody stretches of The Devil's Highway are much-awarded crime novelists, journalists, and border-dwelling troubadours. They serve up stories and essays about lives threatened chasing the elusive, often deadly, dream of more money and better futures beckoning north and south of the border. Emiliano Zapata declared, "It's better to die on your feet than to live on your knees." In that spirit, these bards of the borderland are swinging for the barbed-wire fences: all swagger and dark visions, hell-bent on sweeping you along with them across the Rio Grande to a broken Promised Land. Like treacherous Coyotes, they may gut-shoot you or break your heart in the crossing, but however it goes down, know these hombres are determined to make you feel it.

Ana Torres is a Texas Ranger assigned to a dusty outpost to protect the border. When she discovers the body of a dead crosser, the stage is set for an investigation and a confrontation in the nighttime desert. Luis Gonz lez lives on the Mexican side, helping those who seek a better life in the north while looking for peace in his own way. Marisol Herrera, a border crosser, braves hardship and dangers on her journey from the high mountains of El Salvador to the sun-blasted flats of the Mexico/Texas border. She is alone, chasing a dream, but threatened by the realities of la frontera. The stories of these three will intersect in the badlands of Texas. There will be death and pain and prices paid along the banks of the Rio Grande.