Rio Grande Fall - by Rudolfo Anaya (Paperback)

About the Book

While Sonny Baca and friends are enjoying Albuquerque's famed hot air balloon festival, a woman plummets from the sky. Four black feathers surround her body--the calling card of Sonny's nemesis from "Zia Summer", Raven. Raven possesses powers no mortal can match; and Sonny knows that he is the only one who can defeat him. Drawing on his own guardians, and with the help of a "curandera", Sonny risks his life for his city--and the survival of the one he loves the most.

Book Synopsis

"When a woman dies after falling from a hot-air balloon at Albuquerque's world-famous balloon fiesta, private investigator Sonny Baca's intuition tells him it's murder. His intuition also tells him that the murder is the work of the Raven, the leader of a violent cult that murdered Sonny's cousin, and a man Sonny thought he'd killed. The murder jeopardizes the millions of tourist dollars connected with the fiesta, but Sonny knows the Raven has more on his mind than simple mayhem. This is a completely entertaining mystery novel, but Anaya actually offers two parallel lands of enchantment. One is temporal New Mexico; the other is Nuevo Mexicano, a land of santos, milagros, spirits, visions, and even brujas (witches). It's a land of old ways, old values, and old wisdom. And it's a land where small farms and multigenerational families are fast being wiped out by modernity."--Booklist