I've read just about every Anaya book. This was my least favorite ( )

I really enjoyed reading a fantasy book with magic and traditions from my own part of the world. For folks who believe in a the mystical traditions described in this book, I suppose it may not be fantasy, but the same can be said for Celtic magic in books based on those tradions. ( )

Book two in the Sonny Baca mystery series is set during the Albuquerque NM Hot Air Balloon Fiesta. It’s set to be the biggest moneymaker for the city, until a body plummets from a gondola. Was it a tragic accident, or was the woman murdered?

There’s a lot going on here. We have the aftermath of book one’s mystery; the woman who falls from the balloon is a key witness in that case. There’s an effort to bring in a major drug shipment, using the Balloon Fiesta as cover. Sonny has found a homeless family that he’s trying to help. His mother wants him to forget this investigation business and settle down with Rita, a very good woman. It’s Rita who takes Sonny to Lorenza, a curandera who will perform a limpieza - a cleansing ceremony – to help Sonny dispel the trauma of his past encounter with Raven.

Sonny is in touch with his spirit nagual – the coyote, but is he really a brujo? Can he fly? And can he go up against Raven, who is definitely an evil brujo who has slipped through the various efforts to capture him.

I like magical realism, in general, but this series has gone too far. I read mysteries for the plot, the action, the fast-paced story. This book failed to deliver that. It lacked focus for me and the fact that it took me a week to read it, is reflective of that. I just wasn’t interested. ( )

I found this a very interesting book set in New Mexico. Sonny Baca is Nuevo Mexicano and a P.I. in Alburquerque. I liked the story and found Sonny and his friends to be very interesting. Anaya is apparently one of the founders of Chicano literature and this particular book is over ten years old.

I did think a couple of times as I was reading that without last year's excursions into mythology and Native American religion that it would have been a little hard to follow Sonny in his discoveries of the old native traditions. Still, the adventure was enjoyable and I might read another of Anaya's novels.