In the mountains of northern New Mexico lies the land grant village of Los Santos. Like similar places, it has small adobe houses with tin roofs and a smattering of worn out trailers. Every home has its vegetable patch and chickens roam from yard to yard. Orchards and alfalfa fields surround most of the town where the mountains aren't in the way. There is one paved road that winds up into town and loops its way around to find itself again, because there's nowhere else to go. Los Santos' quirky residents are mostly old or ...
Read More
In the mountains of northern New Mexico lies the land grant village of Los Santos. Like similar places, it has small adobe houses with tin roofs and a smattering of worn out trailers. Every home has its vegetable patch and chickens roam from yard to yard. Orchards and alfalfa fields surround most of the town where the mountains aren't in the way. There is one paved road that winds up into town and loops its way around to find itself again, because there's nowhere else to go. Los Santos' quirky residents are mostly old or stuck. The young, if they have any gumption, have long since fled to find a life and only come home for holidays and funerals. In short, nothing happens in Los Santos. It seems to even have been forgotten by God. The church is in disrepair. Only the tax man remembers it. Nothing happens except, one spring morning, standing by the side of the road Estrellita Cordova makes a decision. She doesn't take time to consider if it is immoral or misguided, or the opposite. It will solve a problem, but she never stops to look ahead and do a body count. How is she to know her choice will turn the world of good and evil topsy-turvy and bring the goons, the Feds and the tax man to her door? CHERI CRAMER JOHNSON has lived in Albuquerque most of her life. She has spent several summers at the University of Iowa's Writers Festival, has attended the University of New Mexico and West Texas State University (now West Texas A&M), and has taught English and Communications at both high school and college levels. The idea for this story came to her while she was driving past little crosses on the roadside and seeing workers in their orange suits picking up trash. This is her first novel.
Read Less
