Book Review: Rio Grande Fall, Book #2 in the Sonny Baca Mystery Quartet by Rudolfo Anaya

Raven's falling into floodwaters does not close criminal cases or end ongoing investigations since black feathers continue to be left as calling cards and no body is recovered from Arroyo del Sol (River of the Sun) east of the Sandia Mountain village of La Cuerva. Trouble indeed emerges with preparations for the first week of October's colorful Hot Air Balloon Fiesta, as: 

• Albuquerque's biggest moneymaker, to the tune of $25,000,000 to $30,000,000 per year; and 
• New Mexico's most exciting, international, and profitable revenue source along with summer's state fair and September's tourism. 

One of Raven's wives, Sister Hawk, furnishes $250,000 -- from the $500,000 stolen from Akira's gift to Gloria -- to release Veronica Worthy on bail. 

The temporary freedom gives Veronica enough time to: 

• fall from a gondola whose hot air balloon is headed toward Petroglyph Park near the West Mesa's extinct volcanoes and whose propane tank explodes near Cottonwood Mall; 
• perish from impalement on cottonwood stumps in the river bosque near Montaño and Coors; and 
• receive posthumously four black feathers. 

Veronica's death halts DA Schwarz's prosecution of Raven's Zia sun queen, Tamara Dubronsky, for orchestrating Dorothy's and Gloria's summertime murders. It is followed by cocaine and heroin dealers Mariano Bustamante (aliased Mario Secco) being shot, John Gilroy getting his carotid artery severed thrice and throat slit in his Mayan-styled Pyramid Hotel sixth-floor room's bathtub, and Andrew Stammer having his carotid arteries stilettoed. 

Investigations with Manuel Lopez join spirituality with Lorenza Villa and Don Eliseo Romero to enable Sonny to:

• dream and meditate through his nagual (guardian animal) coyote; and
• rescue Diego's and Marta's daughter Cristina and Rita's Cantina owner/operator from Raven's Zia sun symbol-shaped compound.

A faded Colombian cartel-related photo from Alisandra Bustamante-Smith keeps Sonny busy investigating as cocaine and heroine entrepreneurs and murder suspects:

• Tamara;
• William Stone; and
• Madge Swenson.

So Rio Grande Fall leads Book #2 readers through culturally enriching, educationally entertaining journeys in the forty-seventh state's Anglo-, Chicano-, and Pueblo-bequeathed Land of Enchantment with: 

• Rudolfo Anaya, author; 
• Marion Ettlinger, portrait photographer;
• Giorgetta Bell McRee, book designer;
• Andrew Newman, jacket designer and illustrator; and
• Warner Books, publisher. 

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

Albuquerque Balloon Festival: Hot air balloons lifting off from the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta fly over the Rio Grande.
Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta Image Gallery, NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center; ID ED09-0286-104; Oct. 4, 2009, NASA Photo / Tom Tschida: Public Domain, via NASA / Armstrong Flight Research Center @ https://www.nasa.gov/centers/dryden/multimedia/albuquerque_balloon_fiesta/index.html#lowerAccordion-set3-slide28

Petroglyph National Monument, one of largest petroglyph sites in North America
Symbols relate to sky and weather, such as cloud terraces and stars.
Bernalillo County, north central New Mexico: Transity, CC BY SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2004-05-06_07_-_Petroglyph,_NM.jpg

Petroglyph National Monument comprises much of West Mesa, an elevated landmass south of Albuquerque.
view of Albuquerque and the Manzano Mountains from the West Mesa: Wxstorm at English Wikipedia, CC BY SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:ABQ-West-Mesa.jpg

Intriguing landscape of New Mexico's Petroglyph National Monument finds mention in "Rio Grande Fall," second of quartet of detective mystery novels by Rudolfo Anaya.
charming petroglyph of star being; Rinconada section, Petroglyph National Monument: Jerry Willis from Tome´, NM, United States of America, CC BY SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rinconada_Star_Being.jpg

Iconic cottonwoods (Populus deltoides) turn yellow in autumn along Rio Grande in New Mexico.
Unfortunately cottonwood stumps serve as fatal mode of impalement in Rudolfo Anaya's "Rio Grande Fall."
cottonwoods and sandhill cranes; Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, Socorro County, central New Mexico: Robert Dunn/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Headquarters, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bosque_del_Apache_National_Wildlife_Refuge_(10440965175).jpg

Anaya, Rudolfo. 1996. Rio Grande Fall. New York, NY: Warner Books, Inc.