Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez

I don't have a good history with books about Game Wardens. Three years ago, I abandoned 'The Poacher's Son', the first book about Maine Game Warden Mike Bowditch because I found Mike so nice and so calm that he bored me. This year, I abandoned 'In Plain Sight' the sixth book in the series about Wyoming Game Warden Joe Pickett because I decided I really didn't like Joe anymore.

Still, I like the idea of stories about Game Wardens so I decided to try 'Hollow Beasts', the first book in a brand show more new series about New Mexico Game Warden Jodi Luna. Now, I have a Game Warden I can look forward to reading about.

'Hollow Beasts' was a breath of fresh air. What a difference it makes when your Game Warden is a Hispanic woman in New Mexico rather than a white man in Wyoming.

'Hollow Beasts' is also a real page-turner, As soon as I started it, I wanted to sit down and read it until it was done.

Some of it, especially the start, is a tough read. The plot involves a White Supremacist terrorist group that behaves like a cult. Their hate and acts of violence against women were graphic, credible and repugnant. I spent a lot of the rest of the book waiting for these guys to get their arses kicked. I wasn't disappointed.

This is an entertaining and engaging book. It's also one which seemed to me to have a clear agenda: expose the twisted thinking and behaviour of white supremacists fighting their 'war' against The Great Replacement', to remind people of the history of New Mexico, including how it became part of the United States, and to show how strong, well-armed, women can work together to put an end to violent men. Most of the time, that agenda provided more energy to move the action forward and to help to define the characters and the culture that they live in. Once or twice, it felt more didactic than that. If it wasn't so closely based on the reality of the current situation, it might have felt like propaganda.

It was rescued from that by two things: I liked Jodi and her daughter and the newly-returned-to-town police detective she was working with; the clever way that Valdés built tension throughout the book, keeping me focused on the action and the risk rather than on the bigger political picture.

Parts of the plot did involve some remarkable co-incidences, mainly with regards to things that establish key relationships for Jodi Luna. I was happy to swallow these because they didn't mess with the main action of the plot or its resolution and because the relationships that were established set up the potential for some interesting twists and turns in the next few books in the series.

I'll certainly be back with Jodi Luna in New Mexico when the next book comes out. show less

Blood Mountain by Alisa Lynn Valdes is the 2nd book featuring Jodi Luna, a Fish & Game Warden for the state of New Mexico. I found this second book as captivating as the first. In this outing, Jodi is sent by her political savvy boss to attend a weekend elk hunt on the ranch of the richest man in New Mexico, Jodi’s purpose is to please and elicit a huge campaign donation.

Although the people who are awaiting her at the ranch are ignorant, rude and overbearing, Jodi does her best. The show more weekend gets off to a rocky start as a snowstorm moves in, knocking out the power and bringing frigid weather. One of the guests goes off by himself and ends up with an arrow in his back. His body is found by the only neighbour who didn’t sell out to the billionaire and she allows her pet bear to snack on the body. Everything does eventually get straightened out but not before Jodi’s daughter finds herself in trouble.

With plenty of suspects to chose from, the identity of the killer as fun to try and figure out. I was a little disappointed in Jodi as she is very prone to letting her emotions rule over her reason, but her daughter Mia kept her head and behaved as I hoped a heroine would. These are fun and very readable stories and I have my fingers crossed that there will be more Jodi Luna books. show less

The dirty girls are back, and there sure are a lot of them - Cuicatl (formerly known as Amber), Usnavys, Sara, Elizabeth, Lauren, and Rebecca. Cuicatl is struggling to revive her music career, which seems to have hit the rocks due to the inaccessibility of her latest songs, while Usnavys is up to no good in an irritatingly predictable subplot (though she redeems herself by the end of the story). Sara is caught up in her (literally) murderous ex-husband Roberto, while Elizabeth gives in to show more her passion for Lauren, and later regrets it. Rebecca, the primmest of the group, comes to terms with her infertility, and seeks alternate options.

While the cast of characters at times feels like a circus, Valdes-Rodriguez's gift for engaging characterization and tight plotting are on full display here. At times I was amazed by the stupidity of the women's behavior, particularly Usnavys and Sara, but the author keeps her characters self-aware and they learn even more about themselves as they go along. It sounds like there may be a sequel in the works. show less

I enjoyed this book but when it finished I realized that I wanted more but it wasn't because I was so enchanted by these women and their lives, it was because Valdes-Rodriguez tried to do too much and just didn't have the room for it.

Each chapter is told from the pov of a different sucia. That device should have given the reader more insight into the world these women inhabit but it actually served to further separate them as it frequently talked about the lives they lead away from each show more other. Now, I liked all six women to varying degrees but I didn't get enough of them in the way I wanted. Less women would have worked better, maybe, because then the story would have been able to be more balanced.

Don't get me wrong, I liked this book a lot. I like the characters, I like their lives and their choices, I like their friendships. I also really liked the social issues that were a natural part of this book. Nothing was presented as if I was being lectured, but nothing was glossed over and made to be okay, either. There are things all these women have to deal with that come from being Latina and that's just the way it is. It was nice to read something that approached these issues honestly.

The book takes place in Boston which, to be honest, was why I bought it. I've read criticisms of the book that say it presents Boston as less liberal than it is, and I think those criticisms are wrong. Yeah, sure, we're liberal, but that doesn't mean there aren't problems, because there are, and what these women run into seemed very appropriate to me. show less