Cuauhtemoc's Crossing

Fired up by the legends of his tequila-smuggling great-grandfather, a Mexican teenager dreams of escaping poverty. He decides to break for the border and cross over to the United States, joining his beloved Tia Monica and her kindly husband in the pursuit of the American dream. Can Cuauhtémoc make the perilous crossing where his ancestor had died before him? Can he make it, alone and on foot, and evade death at the hands of a desperate American loner, Clarence Worley? In dramatic scenes of anger, lust and wilful slaughter, the author paints a picture of a harsh south-Texan landscape, where isolation under a cruel sun can turn a man's mind . . . and a woman's. Cuauhtémoc's Crossing doesn't shirk the issues of immigration and the new fear of terrorism which haunts Americans today. In a bold yet elegant novel that speaks of human crisis and spirit intervention-with a delightful twist at the end-Leon Valverde succeeds brilliantly in baring the souls of both the hunter and the hunted.