Elizabeth a Garcia

One Bloody Shirt at a Time: a Deputy Ricos Tale Elizabeth a Garcia

Publisher Marketing: A few words about One Bloody Shirt at a Time Margarita Ricos is not just any deputy. She's smart. She's courageous. She's a twenty-five-year-old Chicana with attitude who grew up on the edge of the United States in Terlingua, Texas. There, the peoples and cultures of two countries are blended, more than separated, by the once-fierce Rio Grande. Terlingua is an unincorporated settlement built around a mercury mining ghost town of the same name. It lies in the southern part of Brewster County, the largest county in the largest state in the lower forty-eight. It has more square miles than inhabitants; and more mountains than you can count: tall, short, wide, narrow, jagged, rounded, naked, stunning mountains. Margarita and her partner, Deputy Barney George, are entrusted with preserving the peace and upholding the law in a land where the flowers and people grow wild. Crime in south Brewster County is seldom violent, and usually does not come in the form of murder or rape. Yet Norma Bates, a married, forty-five year old, mother of three, is found dead on her kitchen floor, lying in a pool of blood. There is a single stab wound in her chest. Deputy Ricos is about to conduct an interview about the murder when she receives a call from the sheriff. He says he has a couple from Terlingua in his office claiming their fourteen-year-old daughter was raped. Since Margarita is young, and known to the girl, perhaps she can get her to open up. The deputy is stunned by the sheriff's news. Murder-and now rape-what is going on in Terlingua? As the deputies work to solve both crimes, a sinister presence approaches Margarita in her home in the dark. Is it a murder suspect, or the unknown rapist, or a different kind of threat altogether? Contributor Bio:  Garcia, Elizabeth A Elizabeth A. (Beth) Garcia has lived for more than thirty years in the Big Bend country of far west Texas. She has hiked, rafted, explored, and earned a living in this wild desert-mountain land near the Rio Grande, on the border of the United States and Mexico. It was experiencing the deep canyons, creosote-covered bajadas, and stark, jagged mountains, along with the wide-open spaces and dark, starry nights that eventually brought her to writing. Now she can't quit! The Beautiful Bones is her second published novel, and the second of many Deputy Ricos tales. Each one stands alone so they can be read in any order. "One Bloody Shirt at a Time" was the first of this series. For a listing of where to find it, see below. Beth is working on the next Deputy Ricos novel, as well as three others that are unrelated to the Deputy Ricos series. Visit www.deputyricos.com or email the author: deputyricos@yahoo.com On Facebook: www.facebook.com/ElizabethAGarciaAuthor