Showing results by narrator "Thom Rivera" in All Categories

Akashic Books’ acclaimed series of original noir anthologies has set a high standard for portraying cities and their neighborhoods in all their dark and violent splendor. Now, Mexico City Noir surpasses that standard with phantasmagorical tales of double-dealing, corruption, violence and self-delusion.... This collection is such a varied literary feast.

Father Solomon Lancaster—the town's dry-witted sheriff and priest at the community Catholic church—finds himself on the forefront of an investigation into a series of murders. Soon, he's fighting to match wits with the serial killer terrorizing his town while trying to justify his law-enforcement credentials to the FBI as their analysts and profilers take Crooked Creek, Indiana, by storm. But Father Solomon is hiding secrets of his own. Ones that threaten to rise to the surface as the murders continue and the investigation draws nearer to the truth.

Happy Silverman is more than a little excited for his class trip to the museum. He loves learning about Ancient Egypt and can't wait to see real mummies. At the museum, Happy leans as close to the mummy display as he possibly can—and something strange happens. His head spins and he hears an unfamiliar voice ringing inside his mind. The mummy is inside Happy's brain and need his help—or else!

Inequality. Influence. Fraud. Sabotage. These are the themes of great fiction and our modern economy. In this collection of short stories by some of today’s most scintillating writers, the rich get poorer and the poor get richer. Yeah, right! From the heartbreaking to the hilarious, here are eight instantly classic battles over currency, class, privilege - and social distance.

An unnamed paralegal, brought back to life through a controversial process, maneuvers through a near-future world that both needs and resents him. As the United States president spouts anti-reanimation rhetoric and giant pharmaceutical companies rake in profits, the man falls in love with lawyer Faustina Godínez. His world expands as he meets her network of family and friends, setting him on a course to discover his first-life history, which the reanimation process erased.

Winner of six Lambda Literary awards, the Henry Rios mystery series is iconic and Michael Nava has been hailed by The New York Times as “one of our best” writers. Here, Rios delves deeply into his Latino identity as he defends a young man charged with assassinating a prominent Los Angeles Latino politician. The San Francisco Chronicle hailed the novel and its author: “A beautifully conceived but gritty novel.... Nava writes the kind of small, clean, powerful novels that build in emotional power almost invisibly, leaving us breathless at the end.”

This gripping new anthology has over a dozen original tales starring the top-selling mutant heroes, the uncanny X-Men, dealing with their greatest foes, as well as the day-to-day trials of being mutants - trying to protect the world they've sworn to protect, a world that hates them for what they are!

A completely revised edition of the first Henry Rios mystery, The Little Death, Lay Your Sleeping Head introduces Michael Nava’s singular protagonist, gay Latino criminal defense lawyer Henry Rios. Rios, beset by personal and professional problems, begins a passionate affair with the black sheep heir to a great California fortune who tells Rios an improbable tale of murder and sexual predation in his wealthy family. When the young man is found dead of an apparent drug overdose, Rios begins an investigation that ultimately reveals much more than murder.

An alien race calling themselves the Kh'thon descend upon the planet, announcing that they are the former occupants and rightful owners of Earth. The evidence they present is startling: Their ships are manned by Homo sapiens, supposedly descendants of human beings who served the Kh'thon on Earth countless millennia ago, and their will is enforced by the Exemplar, humans augmented with a dizzying array of powers, each the match of any one of the X-Men.

The first new Henry Rios novel in 20 years from six-time Lambda Literary award winner Michael Nava is a brilliantly plotted mystery that weaves together the gripping story of two gay men against the backdrop of 1980s San Francisco as the tsunami of AIDS bears down upon the city.

Havana, Cuba, 1947. Young Patricio flees impoverished Spain and steps into the sultry island paradise of Havana with only the clothes on his back and half-baked dreams of a better life. Blessed with good looks and natural charm, he lands a job as a runner at El Encanto - one of the most luxurious department stores in the world. Famous for its exquisite offerings from French haute couture to Arabian silks, El Encanto indulges the senses in opulent extravagance. It caters to visiting Hollywood stars, rising politicos, and prerevolutionary Cuba’s wealthiest power players.

Venezuela, 1992. Unknown colonel Hugo Chávez stages an ill-fated coup against a corrupt government, igniting the passions of Venezuela’s poor and catapulting the oil-rich country to international attention. For two rival spies hurriedly dispatched to Caracas - one from Washington, DC, and the other from Fidel Castro’s Cuba - this is a career-defining mission.

Abandoned with his two younger brothers, Milo Vega was placed in foster care. Now a 20-year-old high-school senior covered in gang tattoos and working as the school’s janitor, he is living a life vastly different from the one he was destined for. When another foster joins the family, this one from the psychiatric facility, Milo’s skeptical. A rare genetic condition makes her unlike any girl he’s ever seen, and he wants nothing to do with the one he calls Ghostgirl.

Because of our shared English language, as well as the celebrated origin tales of the Mayflower and the rebellion of the British colonies, the United States has prized its Anglo heritage above all others. However, as Carrie Gibson explains with great depth and clarity in El Norte, the nation has much older Spanish roots - ones that have long been unacknowledged or marginalized. The Hispanic past of the United States predates the arrival of the Pilgrims by a century, and has been every bit as important in shaping the nation as it exists today.

In Nebula Award-winning author Sam J. Miller’s devastating debut short-fiction collection—featuring an introduction by Amal El-Mohtar—queer infatuation, inevitable heartbreak, and brutal revenge seamlessly intertwine. Whether innocent, guilty, or not even human, the boys, beasts, and men roaming through Miller’s gorgeously crafted worlds can destroy listeners, yet leave them wanting more.

Los Angeles, 1986. A group of right-wing Christians has put an initiative on the November ballot to allow health officials to force people with HIV into quarantine camps - and it looks like it’s going to pass. Rios, now living in LA, agrees to be counsel for a group of young activists who call themselves QUEER. QUEER claims to be committed to peaceful civil disobedience. But when one of its members is implicated in the bombing of an evangelical church that kills its pastor, Rios finds himself with a client suddenly facing the death penalty.

Winner of six Lambda Literary awards, the Henry Rios mystery series is iconic and Michael Nava has been hailed by the New York Times as "one of our best" crime writers. Upon its original publication, the Los Angeles Times said of Howtown and its author: "Nava's mysteries are faithful to the conventions of the genre, but they are set apart by their insight, compassion, and sense of social justice.... Howtown is Nava's bravest and most ambitious novel to date."

While recovering from a heart attack, gay Mexican-American attorney Henry Rios comes to the aid of his long-lost niece, the illegitimate daughter of his estranged sister, who has confessed to the murder of her abusive husband, but during his investigation, Rios discovers that things are more complicated than he had thought.

Gay Mexican American lawyer Henry Rios has fought bigotry and prejudice, battled alcoholism, and watched his lover die from AIDS. In The Burning Plain, he's wrongly accused of murder after a male prostitute he spent an evening with is savagely murdered. Rios proves his innocence, but when two more gay men are brutally murdered, he is drawn unwillingly into the hunt for a serial killer and soon finds himself up against an unsympathetic DA, a gay-bashing cop, reluctant witnesses, and a conspiracy among Hollywood's power elite.

Winner of six Lambda Literary awards, the Henry Rios mystery series is iconic and Michael Nava has been hailed by the New York Times as "one of our best" writers. Originally published during the darkest years of the AIDS epidemic in the gay community, The Death of Friends received extraordinary praise both as a mystery and an eloquent work of witness. Publishers Weekly said, "This is a brave, ambitious and highly impressive work."