THE LATEST

Brown-On-Brown - Luis Móntez returns in this story set against the Great Sand Dunes of Colorado and a hundred years water war. Along the way, Luis meets Alicia, the bartender with the heart of gold, and her own secret past. And then there's Emilio, a vicious hired killer with a warped sense of humor. Just another few days in the life of the lawyer Publisher's Weekly said had "hangdog charisma." Click here for more information about Brown-On-Brown.

Moony's Road to Hell - Private eye noir. The Bloomsbury Review: "Manuel Ramos has skillfully built a theme of dramatic and disturbing betrayals. ... [The book] offers non-Hispanic readers insights into a world they may never have experienced. His characters are richly drawn with an outward appearance of being successful high achievers, but underneath they are deeply flawed. The plot is engaging, a page-turner ... Ramos has offered us a skillfully crafted tale, with a strong dose of pathos relieved by tender memories of the relationship between two compas, Chacho and Moony." Click here for more Moony reviews and information.

The Ballad of Rocky Ruiz - "[O]ffers no shop worn sentimentality. It is a tale about past sins, and how Móntez must wrestle with his part in all that to see clearly in the present. It is a mystery of the human condition, and our need to heal old wounds. We, like Móntez, learn over again that cynicism and regret plague our psyches. But to totally give in is to give up, and that's not the answer either when the smoke clears. Always forward, Rocky would say, ese, because it ain't no big thing." From the Preface by Gary Phillips.
The Ballad of Gato Guerrero - "But the next time I'm down in Guadalajara I'll make it a point to tell them that a Chicano up in Denver has embraced a traditional genre and transformed it into a separate and distinct voice, and has done it with virtuosity. Manuel Ramos has grabbed the baton and is running with it. The transformation is more than positive. Once in a while, that's the way things happen up here in El Norte." From the Preface by Alfredo Véa, Jr.
The Last Client of Luis Móntez - "The road not taken, the danger evaded, the easy, agreeable, decorous life--these are not for Luis, or for his readers. If this is your first introduction to the work of Manuel Ramos, you are in for a wonderful ride. Hang on tight." From the Preface by Marianne Wesson.
Blues for the Buffalo - "For beneath the malls and the parking lots rimmed with mock orange trees, beneath the subdivisions and golf courses of the American Southwest, there is an arid desert waiting to reemerge. This desert has its own stories and its own people who once knew how to live upon it. They live there still, and in Manuel Ramos they have found a crime writer who knows the territory and can navigate through it at top speed with conviction, wit, and even some of the wild energy of the Brown Buffalo himself." From the Preface by John Straley.