In the Heat
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3.3 • 3 Ratings
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
Winner of the Shamus Award
Boxer Miles Young thinks he's got one more shot in him before it's time to hang up the gloves for good. He may be the only one who thinks so. The truth is, he enjoys the recognition his career has brought him at home, in the small Latin American country of Belize, and he's worried about how he'll support his daughter once it's over. So when his promoter comes to him with a proposition that includes one last big fight, he listens.
Isabelle Gilmore wants Miles to find her daughter, who's run off with some of her mother's money and her no-good boyfriend. Isabelle's afraid Rian's going to marry the kid, the only son of corrupt ex-police chief Marlon Tablada, and she wants Rian---and the money---found. In return, Miles gets put on a fight card with a $30,000 payday.
He's reluctant, but Isabelle thinks a hometown hero can get people to talk in ways a private investigator can't. Trouble is, before he can find Rian, he learns that there's much more to Isabelle, her daughter, and Marlon than Isabelle let on.
Clearly at home in the world of hardboiled crime writing, debut novelist Ian Vasquez is a bright new talent who infuses In the Heat with a steamy, exotic voice all his own.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
At the start of Vasquez's promising first novel, which is set in Belize, fading boxer Miles Young is planning to hang up his gloves and dedicate himself to raising his small daughter, Lani. Then he receives an offer too good to pass up the chance to fight ex-champ Hakeem Wahen in Florida in three weeks if he'll agree to help Isabelle Gilmore, an attractive well-to-do woman, find her missing 17-year-old daughter, Rian. Besides decamping with her undesirable boyfriend, the son of a corrupt former police inspector, Rian has taken a load of cash from her mother. Isabelle claims her interest in locating Rian is purely maternal, but Young suspects she has been less than honest with him. An inexperienced gumshoe, Young winds up paying dearly for his involvement in the case. While the story ends somewhat predictably, Vasquez, who grew up in Belize, does a good job of conveying his native country's underbelly and making Young a credible, if flawed, figure.
