Del Rio is a suspenseful story of corruption, betrayal and redemption. Giving hope in the end that the way we treat the land and our community – the way we treat the most vulnerable among us – are connected. Intrigued? Read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Jane Rosenthal’s Del Rio, which releases on May 18th from She Writes Press.
SYNOPSIS
Del Rio, California, a once-thriving Central Valley farm town, is now filled with run-down Dollar Stores, llanterias, carnicerias, and shabby mini-marts that sell one-way bus tickets straight to Tijuana on the Flecha Amarilla line. It’s a place you drive through with windows up and doors locked, especially at night―a place the locals call Cartel Country. While it’s no longer the California of postcards, for local District Attorney Callie McCall, her dying hometown is the perfect place to launch a political career and try to make a difference.
But when the dismembered body of a migrant teen is found in one of Del Rio’s surrounding citrus groves, Callie faces a career make-or-break case that takes her on a dangerous journey down the violent west coast of Mexico, to a tropical paradise hiding a terrible secret, and finally back home again, where her determination to find the killer pits her against the wealthiest, most politically connected, most ruthless farming family in California: her own.
CHAPTER ONE
Callie
Fletcher wanted me to meet him at the Starlight Lounge, an old roadhouse set on a bluff above the San Joaquin River a few miles south of town. I knew the place, knew as well as any rancher girl or campesina, for that matter, that the Starlight was as close to big city glamor as we’d ever get down here in the dusty Central Valley. At night, when the bar’s revolving neon star scattered light over the tumbleweed and drooping locusts, you could forget for a while where you were, forget the bad air and the heat, the crummy trailer parks lined up at the edges of the fields. Back in the broad daylight, though, under the brutal sun, when Fletcher said we needed to talk, the place would have lost its magic, would have become once again just a squat, stucco building at the dead end of Del Rio Avenue, the booths and barstools filled with pesticide reps anxious to make a sale or ag inspectors reaching under the table for a payoff just to look the other way. The mood inside would have turned as grim and back-to-business as the daytime patrons.
I’d been standing in line at the Flor de Morelia Bakery on a sweltering August morning, waiting for a café con leche and a pan dulce, when my phone chimed and a quick look told me it was a Sacramento prefix, one I didn’t recognize. It could have been anybody up at the capitol, a robo-call or a solicitor, so I let the call go to voice mail. “You have reached the office of District Attorney Callie McCall” said everything that needed to be said. I was Del Rio’s boss-lady now. You’d be amazed at how many people change their minds and hang up when they hear that. A second look at my phone jogged my memory. The call was from State Senator Jim Fletcher, and he was not one to hang up without leaving a message. Just as well I hadn’t taken his call. It gave me time to think.
Not that there was much to consider, really. If I ignored him, I’d never hear the end of it from every judge around. Senator Fletcher, my brother -in-law, got his way. Always. There’s be hell to pay if he didn’t.
“Has oido?” Did you hear? Juan Barajas, the Flor’s proprietor interrupted my train of thought and handed me my go-to bag. “The gypsies are back. Been bothering everybody over at the Valero station.”
I dropped my phone in my purse. ”Oh yeah?” I’d worry about Fletcher later. The gypsies were a more pressing issue, traveling up and down the middle of California, begging, turning tricks at the gas stations and truck stops, stealing. The last thing Del Rio needed was one more set of problems, but it looked like we had them.
“The gypsies, they’re over in Simonian’s almond grove, the one that’s half dead.” Juan continued.
“Anybody get in touch with Old Man Simonian? I asked.
“Can’t.” Maryann Lopez aimed the tongs she was using to pull sweet rolls from the shelves in my direction. “He’s got old-timer’s. His kids put him in a facility, and they live up there in San Jose. Don’t care about the farm.” She went back to piling up her tray for the St. Aloysius ladies’ Bible study.
“Anybody call the cops?”
