City of Strangers by John Shannon
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

3.75 stars, really. A very readable book. Well-written, tightly plotted, with likeable characters. A lot of the action takes place in locations that I know (wide border zone of Tijuana-San Diego), and I agree that the places and the people are portrayed with a high degree of authenticity. The book contains some really well-written, lyrical fragments, which I enjoyed reading just for the pleasure of the language.

However, I have also found totally idiotic pop-psychology fragments, and some dialogues and events as ridiculously improbable as popular shows on TV. Then, when I read the ending, it hit me: it is not really a novel, it is a treatment for an episode of a TV series, plus some bonus literature that can be filtered out :)

Anyway, I will now look for Mr. Shannon's earlier books, some of which are described as "widely acclaimed" and "highly praised."

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