



Do They Know I'm Running?
A Novel
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- $7.99
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
Caught up in a scheme to smuggle his deported uncle back across the border, a young American must fight to save his family, himself, and the woman he loves
At eighteen, Roque Montalvo is a gifted guitarist and a hit with women, but the rest of his life is a struggle. Orphaned at birth and scraping by in a rough Northern California town, he helps support his hardworking aunt and tends to his ex-marine brother—a physical and emotional wreck after his tour in Iraq. Then, to make matters worse, his uncle gets snared in a workplace raid and federal immigration agents deport him back to El Salvador. When Montalvo’s loose-cannon cousin, himself a former deportee, shows up unannounced, he draws Montalvo into a scheme to rescue his uncle and bring him back home. It’s a perilous undertaking in the best of cases, now that gangs and organized crime control the smuggling routes, and the risk ratchets higher when Montalvo learns he’ll be transporting not just his uncle, but also a Palestinian refugee and a young beauty destined for the clutches of a fierce Mexican crime boss. A gritty, realistic, and unforgettable adventure where all borders are tested, Do They Know I’m Running? tightropes the perilous line between menace and hope, danger and home.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Corbett (Blood of Paradise) delivers a rich, hard-hitting epic that illuminates the violent and surreal landscapes of Central America and Mexico. After 18-year-old Roque Montalvo s uncle, Faustino, an illegal Salvadoran immigrant, is deported in an INS sweep, Roque s criminal cousin, Pablo Happy Orantes, cooks up a scheme to smuggle Faustino back to California, along with a mysterious Palestinian asylum seeker, but it involves a hefty price to Latin American thugs. Happy strikes a deal with an FBI agent, offering up a major drug dealer for his family s citizenship papers. Roque travels from California to El Salvador, where he discovers that the gangsters want him to deliver a beautiful girl about his age, Lupe, to a vicious border crime leader. Roque and Lupe embark on an unforgettable journey north, pursued by banditos, police, and the FBI. Of course, Roque falls for Lupe and vows to help her escape a dismal fate. Fans of Luis Alberto Urrea and Don Winslow alike will be richly rewarded.