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Mission Road
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From Publishers Weekly
The past collides explosively with the present in Edgar-winner Riordan's relatively weak sixth Tres Navarre novel (after 2004's Southtown) when Navarre's boyhood friend, reformed criminal Ralph Arguello, appears on his doorstep wearing a blood-soaked guayabera barely one step ahead of the San Antonio police. The cops believe Arguello's wife, cold case detective Ana DeLeon, is about to name her husband as the prime suspect in the 18-year-old unsolved murder of Franklin White, son of a local organized crime boss—and, more incredibly, that Arguello shot her to slow down the investigation. Arguello convinces Navarre he's being set up, and the two of them struggle to evade a citywide manhunt and discover the real killer's identity. Riordan jump-cuts between the present and the mid-1980s to tell the story of White's murder and to provide background for the main characters, including Ana's mother Lucia, one of the city's first female cops. While the parallel narrative adds much needed depth, it dampens the pace and momentum. But the book's biggest flaw is the sitcom-like familiarity of the characters, including Navarre himself—the self-deprecating, wise-cracking PI who could only exist as a fictional trope.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From
Tres Navarre might get top billing, but Riordan's latest San Antonio crime story really stars Maia Lee, the PI's cool, compassionate girlfriend. When the wisecracking Navarre's best friend is wrongly accused of shooting his cop wife, Tres goes on the lam with him to track down the real killer. But because Maia's not a police target, she has a much freer hand to crack the case. So she employs her own considerable investigative skills to work through a cold-case murder file involving the shot officer's mother, who happened to be the SAPD's first decorated woman officer. Between brief calls to Maia, Tres and his pal flee from one dangerous situation to another as the dragnet tightens. A satisfying exploration of passion's dark powers, the story moves along at a cracking pace. And although Riordan seems to telegraph the plot payoff almost from the outset, he ends up delivering several nifty twists. What had seemed to be merely an entertaining crime novel reveals itself as a clever mystery, too. Frank Sennett
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
06/09/2005
I discovered this author about 6 months ago, have read all of the Tres Navarre series and loved every one. Mission Road is just the latest of winners. I won't rehash the plot nor reveal the ending, but it's one of the reasons I love Riordan's writing -- just when you think you're winding down to the ending of the story . . . BAM!, you're in for a surprise.
14/07/2005
The first time I opened this book, I was fifty pages in before I looked up again. Around page 75, I decided maybe I should get back to work. It was a little past page 100 before I finally did.
The next day -- today -- I finished the book. And what a ride it was.
I haven't decided quite yet whether this is the best Tres Navarre book. But what I'm sure of is that it's much better than "Southtown," which I found unsatisfying. Part of it may be that now I'm more used to Rick Riordan's shift to third-person narration, with only the chapters focusing on Tres' himself told in first person. As a result of this change, this story, like "Southtown," has a lot less Tres in it than the earlier volumes did. And because Tres is such a well-drawn character, I missed that focus on him here like I did in "Southtown."
The difference is that "Mission Road" is a much stronger story than "Southtown," and one that hits even closer to home for our hero. Whereas "Southtown" felt rushed and even a little superficial, "Mission Road" reminded me of "Cold Springs," Riordan's non-Tres novel, in its intensity and (as the professional reviewers would say) blistering pace. Not having to frame everything from Tres' point of view has allowed Riordan to create an especially powerful story -- one that gets right down to business and moves very quickly. No wonder I was so drawn in.
There's one other thing I really like about the Tres Navarre stories. Whereas some mystery series are like episodic TV shows, where once the problem-of-the-day is resolved, everything goes back to the *status quo ante*, these books aren't like that. Each novel has led to changes in Tres' life -- some relatively small, but others (as in "Southtown") quite significant. Without giving anything away, I think I can say the changes that happen in "Mission Road" are some of the biggest yet. While this book would be a good introduction to someone who's never read Rick Riordan before, I think people who have read all the previous books in the series will get a lot more emotional impact out of what happens here.
"Southtown" left me unsatisfied and wanting more. "Mission Road" left me drained -- an unusual response for me -- but satisfied. And, of course, wanting more.
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