The Last Hanging of Ángel Martinez

by Kate Niles

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.

ACCLAIM
“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 A Novel

“Kate Niles delivers a true photographer’s lens of New Mexico alongside a fast-paced and hard-boiled mystery. Nina Montgomery is the tough but compassionate probation officer who guides the reader through the many trials and tribulations she faces in order to bring this puzzle to its final solution.”—Phyllis M. Skoy, author of A Coup

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kate Niles is the author of the novels The Book of John and The Basket Maker and the poetry collection Geographies of the Heart.

240 pages, Paperback

Published October 15, 2024

Reviews

[Carolyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an outstanding and compelling read. Such rich characters described with elegant prose and set in the desert southwest. I’ll remember this story for a long time, and I look forward to reading more by Kate Niles!

[Samantha Cole]

I love the character of Nina and relate to her completely. I am a woman exactly her age, widowed, with a personality that values having both a vocation and an avocation. While a nurse/carpenter (me) and parole officer/ceramicist (Nina) might not seem like such parallel complements, I enjoyed all of the similarities that she and I have floating around in our psyches.

Some of the coincidences are uncanny! She and I have recently-launched-adult children, the fizzy confusion of newly-budded romance in our lives, and we have similar conversations with our departed spouses. But there was one conversation that I actually found somewhat therapeutic while I was reading this weekend. It is when Nina is conversing with William's spirit animal in the middle of the book and William tells her that without him there would be no Luis. This touched a very specific grief nerve for me at the moment because old love and new love DO exist in the same time for Nina and so they do too for me. This conversation put a beautiful frame around the issue and changed my perspective ever so slightly. I love that.

I do not generally seek out murder mysteries but I really enjoyed this one.

[Beth · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

[Connie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Many passages are so beautifully written they should be on display at an art gallery! A transporting read.