New York: Mysterious Press, (1995) dj. Hardcover first edition - Latin noir by this writer, born in Spain, but who lived in Mexico since 1958. Second novel featuring his investigator-novelist Jose Daniel Ferro, who is stuck, with a deadline for a new book looming. He becomes obsessed with a young Texan basketball player, whom he sees on stateside TV in his slummy Mexico City apartment. When she disappears after a teammate is murdered, he learns she has been found in Ciudad Juarez, near death after having had one kidney removed. Also included is the saga of a CIA man who escapes from Saigon and searches for a Bulgarian with whom he left a trunkload of heroin; 1920s Barcelona, with anarchists and cops shooting it out in the street; and of course Leonardo's apparent invention of the bicycle. Violent, surrealistic, and told at a headlong pace. Winner of the Latin American Dashiell Hammett Award for the best crime novel of the year (the third time Taibo won this award.) Translated by Martin Michael Roberts. 453 pp. ISBN: 0-892965894.