Coyota

by Martha Egan

Nena Herrera-Casey is the coyota, the youngest, in her large Mexican-American family. Her life in Albuquerque seems placid enough, teaching Spanish part time at UNM and selling crafts from south of the border at the flea market. But she becomes unwittingly entangled in a mysterious "accident," a fiery plane crash that kills a former student. As her life unravels, rogue DEA agents conspire to set her up on bogus drug charges. And her worst nightmare stalks her through the Mexican desert.
Coyota is the consummate Southwestern novel. . . . Egan tells her story with the sure hand of a writer who knows both sides of the peso."--Sara Voorhees, author of The Lumière A Novel of Cannes
"It is apparent that author Martha Egan, who is an importer herself, is very familiar with Mexico and its culture and the Hispanic culture of the Southwest, of which she writes without sentimentality or clichés. Coyota is highly recommended for its vividness and well-crafted plot."-- La Herencia

183 pages, Hardcover

First published October 31, 2007

About the author

BIOGRAPHY: Martha Egan

I always intended to get serious about writing fiction at some point, says author Martha Egan. But it took a hideous experience with U.S. Customs to force me into it. The result was a semi-autobiographical novel, Clearing Customs, named Fiction Book of the Year for 2005 by Online Review of Books & Public Affairs. Her next novel, Coyota, won a Bronze Ippy Award for Mountain-West Best Regional Fiction in 2008 from the Independent Publisher Association. Her short story collection, La Ranfla and Other New Mexico Stories will be released September 2009. Martha Egan publishes fiction under her own imprint, Papalote Press: www.papalotepress.com.

She has been an importer and dealer of Latin American folk art since 1974 through her gallery, Pachamama, in Santa Fe. The Museum of New Mexico Press published her non-fiction books, Milagros: Votive Offerings from the Americas (1991) and Relicarios: Devotional Miniatures from the Americas (1994). Since 1991, she has held the honorary position of Research Associate of the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe. In 2004, she was the first recipient of the Van Deren Coke Award from the Friends of Latin American Folk Art.

She holds a BA in Latin American History from the University of the Americas in Mexico City and was a Peace Corps volunteer in Venezuela in the late 60s.

Egan volunteers with the Corrales Residents for Clean Air and Water, the International Folk Art Market, and hangs out with 43 nieces and nephews. She grew up in northeastern Wisconsin and is a rabid Packer fan.

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Reviews

[Dorothy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Too many cliches. It got better as it went on but just didn’t feel authentic.

[Gerald McFarland · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nicely done, suspenseful and fun. It's a thriller throughout. A young New Mexican woman, Nena, overhears a conversation between two DEA agents. Later she realizes that they're a murderous pair. What's worse is that they figure out that she knows, so the chase is on. It takes the reader from Nena's home in New Mexico to Mexico and back. The novel is also a story of family ties: mostly loving, sometimes annoying, always colorful. A final topic that runs throughout is whether Nena will dump her current boyfriend Cal, a college teacher, and somehow get it back together with a former love, a local police detective named Ruben from whom she's estranged. The various subplots play out nicely in the action-packed final chapters.

[Leylan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved the plot line but the ending was highly lacking and did not tie loose ends. It felt too rushed.

[Juan Hernandez · Rating 2 out of 5]

I liked this book, but, again, was disappointed with the ending. Didn't really finish, as far as I'm concerned, just kind of fell off a cliff.