Arcadia Public Library

John Grady Cole, a 16-year-old dispossessed Texan, crosses the Rio Grande into Mexico in 1949, accompanied by his pal Lacey Rawlins. The two precocious horsemen pick up a sidekick-- a laughable but deadly marksman named Jimmy Blevins-- encounter various adventures on their way south and finally arrive at a paradisiacal hacienda where Cole falls into an ill-fated romance.

ugie March is a Jewish-American boy growing up fatherless and poor in Depression-era Chicago. He seeks a "special destiny," although his circumstances seem to position him for a uniquely disappointing life: his family consists of a simple-minded mother, a brother and "grandmother" who prove to be Machiavellian in their intentions, and an "idiot" youngest brother, Georgie.

Detective Gideon Oliver and his wife are on vacation in Mexico when a local police chief requests his assistance on a case. After Oliver realizes the coroner has misidentified two bodies, he concludes these two mistakes are no coincidence.

Mayan ruins in the Yucatan ... a secret room in a tomb ... an ancient skeleton. To Gideon Oliver, anthropologist, this archaeological find is paradise on earth. He and his wife, Julie, have joined his old mentor, Abe Goldstein, at Tlaloc, Mexico, to make sure there are no dirty doings at the dig. Five years before scandal rocked the site when a colleague ran off with a priceless relic. Now Abe suspects something illegal is again going on. The discovery...