Book: the Henry Rios mysteries
This wonderful series of mystery novels, written by Michael Nava (an attorney currently on the staff of California State Supreme Court Justice Carlos Moreno), is unusual in a number of ways. Its main character, Henry Rios, is not a cop or a PI but a defense lawyer, who starts out as a public defender in the first book and later opens his own practice. Many of his clients are people who have been presumed guilty because of their race, background, or sexuality, and who turn to Rios as their last hope for justice. Rios is also Chicano (the son of Mexican immigrant parents) and a gay man whose difficulty reconciling his sexuality with his conservative religious upbringing has contributed to his alcoholism and emotional repression.
The books' mystery plots are always interesting, and they're elegantly written (especially the later books), but my favorite thing about the series is Rios's own story. He goes through some extremely difficult times, such as dealing with his HIV-positive lover's increasing illness, and some of the books are individually quite bleak. But his story arc on the whole is hopeful; while acknowledging Rios's problems, Nava carefully avoids the stereotype of the tragic gay man. The Rios mysteries, unlike many such series, have an actual conclusion, and I think you'll be glad to see the state of Rios's life and career by the end of the final volume.
The Rios novels are The Little Death (1986), Goldenboy (1988), How Town (1990), The Hidden Law (1992), The Death of Friends (1996), The Burning Plain (1997), and Rag and Bone (2001). I'm not sure if these are still in print, but they're readily available in libraries and secondhand bookstores.
Michael Nava hasn't published any other novels, unfortunately; he seems to be concentrating on his successful legal career. But according to Wikipedia, he's working on a historical novel set around the time of the Mexican Revolution.
The books' mystery plots are always interesting, and they're elegantly written (especially the later books), but my favorite thing about the series is Rios's own story. He goes through some extremely difficult times, such as dealing with his HIV-positive lover's increasing illness, and some of the books are individually quite bleak. But his story arc on the whole is hopeful; while acknowledging Rios's problems, Nava carefully avoids the stereotype of the tragic gay man. The Rios mysteries, unlike many such series, have an actual conclusion, and I think you'll be glad to see the state of Rios's life and career by the end of the final volume.
The Rios novels are The Little Death (1986), Goldenboy (1988), How Town (1990), The Hidden Law (1992), The Death of Friends (1996), The Burning Plain (1997), and Rag and Bone (2001). I'm not sure if these are still in print, but they're readily available in libraries and secondhand bookstores.
Michael Nava hasn't published any other novels, unfortunately; he seems to be concentrating on his successful legal career. But according to Wikipedia, he's working on a historical novel set around the time of the Mexican Revolution.