Manuel Ramos
Colorado Authors Hall of Fame Inductee, 2021
Manuel Ramos has been called the "Godfather of Chicano Noir. " The Los Angeles Times observed that "he is known as a crime writer, but that doesn't quite capture what he does. His books are love stories, political dramas, mordant cautionary tales."
THE BOOKS (cont'd)
The Last Client of Luis Montez
"The road not taken, the danger evaded, the easy, agreeable, decorous life--these are not for Luis, or for his readers. If this is your first introduction to the work of Manuel Ramos, you are in for a wonderful ride. Hang on tight." From the Preface by Marianne Wesson.
Blues for the Buffalo
​Winner of 3rd Annual Latino Books Into Movies Award - Starred review from Publishers Weekly.
"For beneath the malls and the parking lots rimmed with mock orange trees, beneath the subdivisions and golf courses of the American Southwest, there is an arid desert waiting to reemerge. This desert has its own stories and its own people who once knew how to live upon it. They live there still, and in Manuel Ramos they have found a crime writer who knows the territory and can navigate through it at top speed with conviction, wit, and even some of the wild energy of the Brown Buffalo himself." From the Preface by John Straley.
Brown-on-Brown
Luis Móntez returns in this story set against the Great Sand Dunes of Colorado and a hundred years water war. Along the way, Luis meets Alicia, the bartender with the heart of gold, and her own secret past. And then there's Emilio, a vicious hired killer with a warped sense of humor. Just another few days in the life of the lawyer Publisher's Weekly said had "hangdog charisma."
Moony's Road to Hell
Private eye noir. The Bloomsbury Review -- "Manuel Ramos has skillfully built a theme of dramatic and disturbing betrayals. ... [The book] offers non-Hispanic readers insights into a world they may never have experienced. His characters are richly drawn with an outward appearance of being successful high achievers, but underneath they are deeply flawed. The plot is engaging, a page-turner ... Ramos has offered us a skillfully crafted tale, with a strong dose of pathos relieved by tender memories of the relationship between two compas, Chacho and Moony."