Milllionaire playboy/detective Bill Chak volunteers to help his alma mater, the University of Texas, solve the mystery of the shooting death of their prize high school football recruit, Charlie Gonzalez, and his father, Abel Gonzalez, on their remote ranch in southwest Texas. His allies in the search are Booth Davis, the crusty county sheriff, and Rafael Ortiz, a Piedras Negras brothel operator who handles Chak's detective business in Mexico. Chak patiently pursues three leads which eventually prove to be false. First, a high school rival of the murdered boy is suspected. Then the arrow of suspicion points to Hamp MacGillicuddy, a rabid alumnus of Texas A & M who has gotten his school in trouble on several occasions with his unethical recruiting practices. The third suspect is the mother of Charlie Gonzalez and ex-wife of Abel Gonzalez, who hated him for divorcing her and taking up with an Anglo mistress. But the investigation abruptly changes course when a rented car is discovered in a deep water hole in the Frio River near the Gonzalez Ranch. There had been heavy rain and severe flooding the night of the murder, and the car had been washed off a low-water crossing into the river. It is a rental car from an agency at the San Antonio Airport. No body is found in the vicinity, so Chak and Davis assume that the driver escaped. The contents of the vehicle was soaked, but the searchers found a shotgun which had been fired five times, and one valuable clue - - a map of New York City with a location marked at the Washington Square Arch in Greenwich Village. The detective and the Sheriff interview personnel at the San Antonio agency which rented the car and get a good description of the driver. They then fly to New York City and check out the location of the X on the map. To their surprise, they find that an NYU professor, Murray Glass, was making a speech under the arch on Lincoln's birthday and was shot dead from the fire escape of a nearby building. They talk to the NYPD lieutenant who investigated the murder and are surprised to find that the FBI has taken over the case as a federal matter. They also learn that nobody can trace the professor's history back more than 10 years. Back in Texas, Chak enlists Rafael Ortiz to set up a meeting with the Gonzalez widow in Monterrey, Mexico. She is ambivalent about the murders - - angry and aggrieved by the death of her beloved son, Charlie, but glad that her conniving husband is dead. When the widow hears the description of the suspected murderer - - the man whose rent car was found in the Frio River - - she becomes furious and offers to help any way she can. Under questioning by Chak, she reveals that she and Mr. Gonzalez were originally wealthy Hondurans who owned a large plantation near the Nicaraguan border. When the U.S. set up the Palmerola air base in Honduras to supply the Contra rebels in the 1980's, they leased part of their plantation to U.S. agents for location of warehouses and refueling tanks. She explains that a small group of American and Hispanic men often came to their home for dinner, and that her husband told her that two of the men were wholesale drug dealers. The FBI agent in charge in San Antonio sets up a meeting with the Sheriff and the detective and orders them to drop their investigation, but they refuse. Chak then offers a compromise - - that the two sides work together and set a trap for the killer or killers. His idea is that Mrs. Gonzalez and her sleep-in companion, an Albino man named Chi-Chi, move to the Gonzalez ranch. Chak will act as their agent, announcing that the widow is writing a "tell all" book about her husband's activities, and will hold a news conference at the ranch in one month. In the mean-time, no news media persons will be allowed to interview her. The FBI, the Sheriff, and the Texas Rangers set up an elaborate undercover protective network to intercept any suspicious persons who show up in the

As the magazine of the Texas Exes, The Alcalde has united alumni and friends of The University of Texas at Austin for nearly 100 years. The Alcalde serves as an intellectual crossroads where UT's luminaries - artists, engineers, executives, musicians, attorneys, journalists, lawmakers, and professors among them - meet bimonthly to exchange ideas. Its pages also offer a place for Texas Exes to swap stories and share memories of Austin and their alma mater. The magazine's unique name is Spanish for "mayor" or "chief magistrate"; the nickname of the governor who signed UT into existence was "The Old Alcalde."

As the magazine of the Texas Exes, The Alcalde has united alumni and friends of The University of Texas at Austin for nearly 100 years. The Alcalde serves as an intellectual crossroads where UT's luminaries - artists, engineers, executives, musicians, attorneys, journalists, lawmakers, and professors among them - meet bimonthly to exchange ideas. Its pages also offer a place for Texas Exes to swap stories and share memories of Austin and their alma mater. The magazine's unique name is Spanish for "mayor" or "chief magistrate"; the nickname of the governor who signed UT into existence was "The Old Alcalde."

Maxum Kie Ritchen learns a deadly secret that threatens his world and plagues his planet with civil war. In his madness, he releases the deadly Terinolice Virus onto USSTAP's Millmum Capitol Station. The Osguards and all of Millmum Capitol Station are dying. Their only hope is Osguard 55, Juanita Genesis Clark. She must leave her grieving family on Earth and travel across the galaxy to get the one man who has the cure for the Terinolice Virus. Just one catch, he's on Kulusk. Meanwhile on Earth, USSTAP Officer Stelana Rican and FBI Special Agent Anthony Musoto must track down the killer of Juanita's 5-year old cousin, unaware of the biological terror playing out in the heavens above them.

Gabriel Mathis, a twenty-three-year-old aspiring fantasy writer and reluctant Russophile, travels to Ukraine to teach English and meets the love of his life: an international arms dealer very much out of his league. Simon—a former Special Forces medic, torn over a warped sense of duty and a child he did not want—returns to the US to pursue his dream of becoming a mixed martial artist. After spending his adolescence defending his bisexuality, Michael makes his mark in New York’s fashion industry while nursing resentment for a community that never accepted him. Farria traces the lives of brothers Michael and Gabriel and their friend Simon from adolescence to their mid-twenties, through Oklahoma, Afghanistan, New York, Somalia, Ukraine, and New Orleans. Revolutions of All Colors is a brash, funny, and honest look at the evolution of characters we don’t often see—black nerds and veterans bucking their community’s rigid parameters of permissible expression while reconciling love of their country with the injustice of it. At its core, this is a novel about the uniquely American dilemma of chiseling out an identity in a country still struggling to define itself.

As the magazine of the Texas Exes, The Alcalde has united alumni and friends of The University of Texas at Austin for nearly 100 years. The Alcalde serves as an intellectual crossroads where UT's luminaries - artists, engineers, executives, musicians, attorneys, journalists, lawmakers, and professors among them - meet bimonthly to exchange ideas. Its pages also offer a place for Texas Exes to swap stories and share memories of Austin and their alma mater. The magazine's unique name is Spanish for "mayor" or "chief magistrate"; the nickname of the governor who signed UT into existence was "The Old Alcalde."

"Malena Lott's charming, heartfelt novel about how grieving widow Ramona Elise gets her groove back will have you cheering bravissimo as she experiences her own Renaissance, courtesy of one very hot Leonardo da Vinci." - Jenny Gardiner, award-winning author of Sleeping with Ward Cleaver A gorgeous young Italian, with nowhere to go . . . His name just happens to be Leonardo da Vinci. When he walks into Ramona Elise's English class, he's a twenty-five-year-old immigrant, struggling to forge a new life in America - but he's lonely, has nowhere to live, and barely speaks English . . . She knows she shouldn't take him home . . . Picking up the pieces of her life after the death of her beloved husband, linguist and teacher Ramona Elise can't help but be charmed by her gorgeous new student. And when he calls her "Mona Lisa" she just about loses her heart . . . "Delightfully affirming romance!" - Booklist WHAT READERS ARE SAYING ABOUT MALENA LOTT: "Sweet and funny, and very real." "Funny and refreshing." "I was hooked from the first page." "I couldn't put it down. It was amazing!"