A voluptuous artists’ model is murdered, her mutilated body dumped in the central plaza of the colonial Mexican town of San Miguel de Allende. Inspector Hector Diaz’s murder investigation takes him deep into San Miguel’s gringo expat colony, the corruption of modern Mexico by greed and drugs, and the quirky byways and dead ends of love. Corporal Felicia Goya, a tough cookie, ably assists Diaz in his search for the killer. When ancient Aztec gods or their hallucinations appear to Diaz, he considers the legacy of Mexico’s bloodstained past as a blueprint for justice in the present. Recalling Michael Chabon’s The Yiddish Policemen’s Union in its mastery of metaphor, wit, moody atmosphere and sense of place, A Death in Mexico is a gritty and gripping quest for revenge and redemption.