Book Review: Jemez Spring, Book #4 in the Sonny Baca Mystery Quartet by Rudolfo Anaya

Private detective Manuel López doubts Sonny’s personal commitments to and professional longevity in private investigative work because of:

• Sonny’s inexperience with firearms, as evidenced in his preferring to keep great-grandfather Elfego Francisco Baca’s .45-caliber single-action Colt unloaded; and
• Sonny’s tendency from his previous job description as Valley High School literature teacher to subject events to interpretations and re-interpretations over and over again.

Sonny nevertheless exercises the nimble, observational, and personal skills that are so vital to successful police detective and private investigative work. He finds himself:

• liked by men for his confidence and conversation; and
• loved by women for his gallantry and gorgeousness.

Only Raven and his coerced or complicit associates go toward Sonny angrily or violently. 

Sonny has his case load lightened by closing Raven’s rap-sheets and missing private eye credential renewal dates. In the first instance, Raven is over-confident enough to:

• have a nuclear bomb left in Valles Caldera for detonation near Los Alamos National Laboratories;
• identify the bomb’s dismantling code, #1776;
• judge self-professed Zia sun queen Tamara Dubronsky adept at spiritual consciousness awakeners linked to the seven-step spinal tree from the back’s base to the head’s crown;  
• kill New York-based artist Naomi with a gunshot wound to the chest; and
• wrestle with Naomi’s lover Bear in the churning waters under the Barelas Bridge at 6:00 p.m.

Sonny joins Lorenza, Rita, and Tamara in considering Raven’s death by drowning a provisional victory. 

The storyline keeps its momentum through cultural, geo-historical, philosophical, and spiritual information from Anglo, Chicano, Hispanic, Hopi, Pueblo, and Tlaxcalan customs. It juxtaposes atomic waste and environmental degradation with such plot intricacies as Frank Dominic, Gloria’s widower and Sonny’s ex-cousin-in-law, challenging centuries-old resource claims and privatizing water rights against Albuquerque’s long-standing residents and for Northeast Heights’ and West Mesa’s super-developers. So Jemez Spring keeps Book #4 readers culturally enriched, educationally entertained, geo-historically enthralled throughout nuclear waste-buried, multiculture-cherished, unidentified flying object-documented landscapes where tradition and water are precious, thanks to:

• Rudolfo Anaya, author;
• Centaur 13/15 body type;
• Decotura display type; and
• Kathleen Sparkes, book and jacket designer, jacket artist, type composer; and
• University of New Mexico Press, publisher.

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Pueblo of Jemez (pronounced "Hay-mess" or traditionally as "He-mish") is the only location where Towa is spoken; traditional law prohibits written forms of the language.
Jemez Pueblo, Sandoval County, north central New Mexico: Daxis, CC BY ND 2.0, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/daxis/9064291090/

Concerns about a nuclear bomb left in Valles Caldera contribute to suspense in "Jemez Spring," last installment in Sonny Baca quartet by Rudolfo Anaya.
Cerro la Jara, approximately 246-feet (75-meter)-high forested rhyolite lava dome in Valle Grande, largest meadow in the Valles Caldera National Preserve in Jemez Mountains
Sandoval County, north central New Mexico: Brian0918 (Brian0918 on en.wikipedia), Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Valle_Grande_dome.jpg

In "Jemez Spring," Sonny Baca's nemesis drowns in the Rio Grande at Barelas, historic neighborhood south of downtown Albuquerque defined by Rio Grande and railroad yards.
vaulted wooden and steel ceilings with green and yellow stained glass windows of The Yards, formerly Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Rail Yards complex, now site of popular markets and shops
ATSF Rail Yards are sited in Albququerque's Barelas neighborhood, south of downtown and adjacent to South Broadway neighborhood.: Michael Zanussi, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/mzanussi/15668905097/

Chicoma Mountain: highest point in Jemez Mountains, with elevation of 11,561 feet (3,524 meters) and exceptionally high tree line, almost to summit
viewed from north; Saturday, July 18, 2009, 10:58: JerryFriedman, CC BY SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Chicoma_from_north.JPG

Soda Dam on Jemez Creek near Jemez Springs: natural dam created by buildup of mineral deposits from underground hot springs
Santa Fe National Forest, north central New Mexico: John Fowler (snowpeak), CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Soda_Dam_on_Jemez_Creek.jpg

Anaya, Rudolfo. 2005. Jemez Spring. Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press.