The Last Hanging of Ángel Martinez

“Riveting and powerfully told, The Last Hanging of Ángel Martinez by Kate Niles adds another strong, charismatic female detective to the landscape of contemporary mystery fiction.”—Lynn C. Miller, author of The Unmasking: A Novel

In Taos County, New Mexico, probation officer Nina Montgomery thinks she knows all about Ángel Martinez, a “frequent flyer” in the judicial system for increasingly sadistic treatment of his ex-partner, Liza Monaghan. When Liza is found dead on her kitchen floor, everyone suspects Ángel—Nina most of all.

When Ángel’s aunt Loretta, Nina’s neighbor and friend, asks her to look into Liza’s murder, Nina reaches out to friend and sheriff’s deputy Larry Baca and becomes embroiled in the case. As Nina delves into Ángel’s and Liza’s lives, she is surprised to learn that Ángel is a santero artist on the rise. A talented but struggling ceramic artist herself, Nina’s worlds collide when a Hollywood celebrity wants her art just as the entanglements of Ángel’s family history begin to suggest the source of Liza’s death. Amid the cultural and natural beauty of the Northern Rio Grande Valley, Nina finds herself steeped in the drama of a family gone terribly and violently wrong.