Allana Martin's sixth color-filled mystery, set in a remote spot on the Mexican-American border, opens with an unexpected and terrible blow for trading-post owner Texana Jones. Her husband, Clay, a popular veterinarian with patients on both sides of the (almost dry) Rio Grande, has been arrested for the murder of the river master, the official in charge of allocating the region's scant water supply under the terms of the binational agreement. Now Clay is in jail awaiting trial in a Mexican court. Having lived all her life on the fringe of Mexico, Texana is anything but naive about their harsh legal system - where there is no such thing as bail, habeas corpus, probation, or early release. The fate of the accused is not in the hands of a jury, but the hands of a single judge, a judge who may be fair, or who may have self-interests that will sway the verdict. And, unfortunately, the latter is more likely. Determined to find incontrovertible evidence of Clay's innocence that even the most venial judge would not dare to overlook, she delves into the river master's background - at no small risk. Whoever is behind all this is determined to hold on to the spoils of the effort. Texana must use all her senses, her ingenuity, and her courage to free her blameless husband from the coils of the Mexican judicial snare and the enemy behind it. Martin's firm hold on the unusual lives of the people who live - and try to make a living against many odds - in the small area where these stories are set pulls readers into a world they never knew. The strength and reality of Texana Jones's extraordinary common sense and human understanding convince her readers that she's their friend, one whose adventures they share.

Winner of the J. B. Jackson Prize from the Association of American Geographers Three centuries ago, the Los Angeles River meandered through marshes and forests of willow and sycamore. Trout spawned in its waters and grizzly bears roamed its shores. The bountiful environment the river helped create supported one of the largest concentrations of Indians in North America. Today, the river is made almost entirely of concrete. Chain-link fence and barbed wire line its course. Shopping carts and trash litter its channel. Little water flows in the river most of the year, and nearly all that does is treated sewage and oily street runoff. On much of its course, the river looks more like a deserted freeway than a river. The river's contemporary image belies its former character and its importance to the development of Southern California. Los Angeles would not exist were it not for the river, and the river was crucial to its growth. Recognizing its past and future potential, a potent movement has developed to revitalize its course. The Los Angeles River offers the first comprehensive account of a river that helped give birth to one of the world's great cities, significantly shaped its history, and promises to play a key role in its future.