The Creed of Violence

Teran's cinematic fifth novel portrays the 1910 Mexican revolution via the gun sights of an unlikely duo: Rawbone, a hardened smalltime assassin, and John Lourdes, a Bureau of Investigation agent. The two are thrown together when Rawbone is caught smuggling munitions from Texas into Mexico and Rawbone's lawyer arranges a deal: immunity in exchange for Rawbone sharing his criminal intel. A bargain is struck, with Lourdes assigned to accompany Rawbone into the Mexican underground. The twist: Lourdes, unknown to everyone but himself, is Rawbone's son. As the two men make their way through a snake's nest of smugglers, thugs and professional killers, Lourdes must suppress the angst he feels toward his father and focus on surviving another day. While this bit of dramatic irony quickly wears thin, father and son share a sharp wit, cunning instinct and thirst for adventure that make this spy mission the very definition of a thrill. Teran's fast-paced prose reads like it was written for the big screen (Universal scooped up the film rights), and even if the moralizing about U.S. foreign intervention gets heavy-handed, this remains an intelligent page-turner. (Nov.)