Howtown
By Michael Nava
3.5/5
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this ebook
It’s been almost a decade since Henry Rios has seen his sister, Elena. A troubled family history has left them both with unhappy memories. But his visit with his sister isn’t the reunion he imagined. As Rios comes to terms with the results of his partner’s HIV test, Elena asks him to defend Paul Windsor, someone they grew up with—who has a history of pedophilia and has just been charged with murder after his fingerprints were found at a crime scene.
The victim, who peddled child pornography, was tortured before he was bludgeoned to death in a motel room. The investigation takes Rios back to his old neighborhood and down a twisting trail of blackmail, jealousy, and tainted love. Forced to confront his demons, he’ll face off with some hard truths about himself—and with a merciless killer.
Howtown is the third book in the Henry Rios mystery series, which also includes The Little Death and Goldenboy.
Michael Nava
Michael Nava is the author of an acclaimed series of seven crime novels featuring gay, Mexican-American criminal defense lawyer Henry Rios. The Rios novels have won seven Lambda Literary awards and Nava was called by the New York Times, “one of our best.” In 2001, he was awarded the Publishing Triangle’s Bill Whitehead Lifetime Achievement Award in LGBT Literature. A native Californian and the grandson of Mexican immigrants, he divides his time between San Francisco and Palm Springs.
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Reviews for Howtown
45 ratings5 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lawyer Henry Rios travels north to the area where he grew up to take a case as a favor to his estranged sister. Henry had a very painful childhood as did his sister but they both had led their past in different ways.He refers to his hometown as How Town, a phrase taken from an E. E. Cummings poem called 'anyone lived in a pretty how town'.
"women and men (both little and small)
cared for anyone not at all
they sowed their isn't they reaped their same
sun moon stars and rain....'
The case is a difficult one involving a pedophile who has purportedly committed murder. Under another circumstances he would have refused the brief but he does want to help his sister and their by her friend. It means meeting old friends whose reactions to him he is unsure of, but immediately he realizes that there is something very wrong in the city of Los Robles amidst the politicos, the overhand shakers as well as the police. Henry believes the truth must come out one way or another and he has to step lively or he will be steam rolled into the ground.
Henry Rios is a complex character with many shadows in his life but at least during this book he tries to stay in the sun. - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5How Town, the third in Michael Nava's series about the gay Chicano lawyer Henry Rios, has him reluctantly taking on the case of a known child molester Paul Windsor, the brother of Henry's best friend from his school days, now accused of murder. The evidence against Paul is weak at best, suspicious at the worst.Taking the case means returning to his home town, leaving Josh, his HIV-positive lover, to fend for himself, but on Josh's insistence Henry takes the case. As Henry's investigations proceed he unearths a probable and potential volatile scenario on the face of it seems even more unlikely than the tenuous case against his client. As Henry gradually makes known the findings of his investigations he finds someone is one step ahead of him, and soon his own life is in danger.In Henry Rios Michael Nava has created a captivating and most appealing character, a man of integrity and a man with heart and a champion of minority groups. How Town is a gripping story with an intriguing and well drawn plot. the court room scenes are especially good, and the legal intricacies of the case along with the necessary procedures are adroitly handled and make fascinating reading.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Decent attorney/detective story. The descriptions are tight and potent and the plot stands up for scrutiny. The main characters are interesting, but are not fleshed out quite enough, and thus I mainly read for plot and didn't feel too much for the characters - too bad, there's plenty potential there. Some of the minor characters are actually better described (although in fewer scenes and words). I did have a problem with the argument for pedophilia - it is almost described as just another harmless sexual orientation - and I suppose I would have wished for the novel to have even more severe punishments for the offenders.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5In the first 25 pages, the author mentioned at least five poets and made smattering references to other 'classic' writers, leaving me awkwardly wondering if he was trying to impress the reader or if he was trying to impress upon the reader the idea his character was well-read. In the end, (with much literary name-dropping in between), I think it was both. I feel the author talks-down to his readers by spending extra time defining some very basic legal terms. Even archaic or verbose vocabulary is explained for the characters who are a little slower on the uptake. While reading, I often wondered if the author was intentionally condescending or if the definitions were inserted at the suggestion of a well-meaning editor. The author's style aside, this is one of several books featuring lawyer Henry Rios. In this story, Henry returns to his small hometown full of prejudice and bad memories in order to defend a known pedophile against murder charges. Personally, I found several of the side-plots more interesting than the main investigation and courtroom drama, but the story kept a tight focus. While social systems were important to the book, it was obvious to me that every character was treated like a cog, a part of his or her group rather than an individual-- with the exception of the main character. In essence, I wasn't impressed with the book. The plot kept moving, uncovering lots of small town secrets, but in the telling, the author left behind elements which I would have liked to see explored in more depth.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5From one pandemic to another - Covid to AiIDS.I’ve just finished reading a series of 7 novels set over the period from the early 1980’s to the mid 1990’s in California and the period of the emergence of AIDS until the development of antivirals to treat the virus. While all the books in the series are excellent, Howtown I think is exceptional and deserves 5 stars The novels are in the noir crime fiction genre – a la Dashiell Hammett and Philip Marlowe – and are written by Michael Nava, a Californian of Mexican heritage. After a literature degree from Colorado College, Nava went to Stanford to do law and worked in criminal defence in Los Angeles and, at the end of his career, in San Francisco, to 2016. Nava’s central character is criminal defence attorney Henry Rios who, like Nava is of Mexican heritage and a gay man.The novels are superbly well written, and though of the gumshoe crime fiction tradition, I found great parallels in their structure, focus, and dovetailing of metaphor, with the writing of Jane Austen! Michael Nava’s novels are within the parameter of California criminal legal system. The novelist posits one group against another – groups represent social norms or biases. Given the vagaries of the legal system where full exploration right or wrong is expected but not always delivered, the central character, Henry Rios, needs to do his own investigation to ensure moral justice is in place. And, while Henry attends to the particular case that is the focus of the novel, his own life continues with the minutia and upset and happiness any life has. The tension drives the plot making these novels pare turners. They are each in the $5 range on Kindle and in the time order of the tale start with “Lay Your Sleeping Head”, Carved in Bone”, “Howtown”, “The Hidden Law”, “The Death of Friends”, “The Burning Plain”, “Rag and Bone”.