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The Barnes & Noble Review

It's been said that there are only three truly indigenous American art forms: the Western, the musical comedy, and the private eye story. The first two have passed through several cycles of rising and falling popularity, but the P.I. thriller has endured -- even flourished -- with remarkable consistency. Since its inception in the 1920s, the form -- together with its defining figure, the autonomous, wise-cracking private detective -- has assumed the status of 20th-century archetype and has continued to attract a steady stream of gifted new interpreters. Recent notable examples include Robert Crais, Walter Mosley, and Dennis Lehane. We can now add to that list Texas-born novelist Rick Riordan, whose excellent third mystery, The Last King of Texas, has just hit the shelves.

Riordan has been on a fast-track since the beginning of his career. His first two novels, Big Red Tequila and The Widower's Two-Step, were both paperback originals. Between them, they won virtually every major award the field offers, including the Shamus, the Anthony, and the Edgar. The Last King of Texas marks Riordan's overdue hardcover debut. Like the first two books, this one features Tres Navarre, a San Antonio private investigator with a Ph.D. in English.

As the novel opens, Tres is considering a position that utilizes all of his professional qualifications. Aaron Brandon, a professor of English at the San Antonio branch of the University of Texas, has just been murdered. The motive behind that murder remains unknown and may have been either personal or political. Following a job interview that is violently disrupted by the arrival of a letter bomb, Tres agrees to replace Brandon and assume his interrupted courseload while San Antonio homicide detectives continue to pursue his murderer.

The initial investigation into the victim's background reveals that, six years before, his own father -- a shady Texas entrepreneur named Jeremiah Brandon -- had also been murdered, shot down in a local bar by Zeta Sanchez, his employee and personal protégé. When police learn that Sanchez, who disappeared immediately after the shooting, has recently returned to town, the new investigation suddenly develops a focus. Eyewitness testimony, along with the subsequent discovery of incriminating physical evidence, once again points to Sanchez, who is arrested following a shootout in which a San Antonio deputy sheriff is seriously wounded.

This apparent solution to the Brandon murder is swift and convenient, but not -- from Tres Navarre's viewpoint -- altogether convincing. Disturbed by a number of discrepancies that the local district attorney seems determined to ignore, Tres pursues his own independent investigation, which takes him into the often sordid history of the Brandon family. Together with a fellow private detective, a beautiful, hard-edged homicide cop, and a violent, streetwise "pawnshop king" named Ralph Arguello, Tres comes gradually to a different -- and very surprising -- conclusion. Along the way, his researches illuminate the troubled past of Ines Brandon, Aaron's widow; the related history of Zeta Sanchez and his own abbreviated marriage; the bloody rituals of the San Antonio youth gangs; and the hidden connection between the Brandon family business -- repairing amusement rides for the Southwestern carnival circuit -- and the South Texas heroin trade.

There's nothing essentially new in any of this, but that's perfectly O.K. Riordan understands the conventions of his chosen form and works comfortably within them. His protagonist, Tres Navarre, is -- despite his admittedly unusual alternate profession -- an obvious lineal descendent of Philip Marlowe: brash, tough, loyal, and driven by an intensely personal ethical code. The narrative itself is swift, violent, and vivid, filled with gracenotes and effortlessly infused with the ambiance of the American Southwest. Most importantly, Riordan has given us a novel that realistically reflects the effects of violence on ordinary people: the men, women, and children who endure -- and sometimes even survive -- their traumatic encounters with a corrupt, increasingly inhuman society.

Familiar or not, The Last King of Texas is an engrossing, high-energy performance and a welcome addition to a crowded field. Riordan, clearly, is a writer to watch, and his narrator/hero, Tres Navarre, is a character who is well worth revisiting, who honors -- and extends -- the peculiarly American tradition from which he springs. (Bill Sheehan)

Amazon.com

For his first two novels featuring PI Tres Navarre, Rick Riordan garnered the Anthony, Shamus, and Edgar Awards--a trio that few seasoned Mystery careerists can claim. In this third, equally entertaining installment, Riordan casts Navarre according to the other piece of his quirky skill set: his Ph.D. in English literature from UC Berkeley.

While the worst-case scenario envisioned by most professors at the University of Texas at San Antonio probably involves lost essays or a failed tenure bid, recently the medievalists at UTSA have wound up deader than their favorite language. At first, the deaths seemed like accidents. Dr. Theodore Haimer was forced to take an early retirement when his remarks about "the damn coddled Mexicans at UTSA" found their way into the Express-News. Shortly thereafter, the old man was discovered deceased, his head in a bowl of Apple Jacks, the result of an apparent heart attack. His successor, the young Dr. Aaron Brandon, continued to receive the vituperation and death threats that had followed his predecessor to the grave. Then, halfway into the semester, Brandon was also found dead--murdered. Now, Tres Nevarre is the only man crazy enough to fill the vacant chair of Chaucer studies and murder avoidance at the amiable institution. His first day on the job is the clincher: an exploding package leaves him both scarred and excited for the only academic job he's ever found that rivals Indiana Jones's.

Riordan's style blends the hipness of Elmore Leonard with the sardonic humor of Janet Evanovich. And like Evanovich, Riordan draws on the colorful character of his locale--in his case the twangy chili con carnage of San Antonio academic life--to pepper his narrative with a mixture of medieval literature, Tex-Mex dialogue, and Sherlock Holmesian puzzles. While there aren't many more awards for Riordan to conquer, The Last King of Texas will certainly win him some more loyal fans. --Patrick O'Kelley

From Publishers Weekly

In a terrific sequel to The Widower's Two-Step, which won the 1999 Edgar for Best Original Paperback, the third Tres Navarre mystery finds the academic-turned-PI reluctant to accept a chair in medieval studies at the University of Texas at San Antonio, a chair whose last two tenants have met with violent deaths. But when a bomb goes off in the dean's office nearly killing him and two others, he instantly accepts the assignment. Tres quickly finds out that the second victim's father, Jeremiah Brandon, a ruthless amusement-park ride manufacturer known as the "King of the Carnivals," was also murdered years before. The prime suspect then was Jeremiah's former employee, gang member Zeta Sanchez, who believed that the predatory Jeremiah was sleeping with his wife, but Sanchez was never apprehended. Suddenly it is reported that, after years on the run (and in a Mexican jail), he has been spotted in the region. Tagging along with the San Antonio police, Tres finds himself in the middle of a violent shoot-out during which Sanchez is arrested; now he is also the number one suspect in the murder of Jeremiah's son. Not surprisingly, Sanchez vigorously protests his innocence. All this happens in just the first 40 pages of this fast-paced and highly entertaining novel, as Tres finds himself drawn into the complex vortex of the Brandon family's ugly past. With the help of beautiful yet tough homicide detective Ana DeLeon (a potential romantic interest) and other, less than savory, friends from the wrong side of the law, the wisecracking Tres untangles an intricate web of murderous family rivalries, missing persons and heroin traffic--all the while evoking with bright color the interplay of San Antonio's Latino and Anglo cultures and the joys of Tex-Mex cuisine.