El Camino del Rio

by Jim Sanderson

Presidio, Texas is hard country and hardship duty for U.S. Border Patrol officer Dolph Martinez. When circling buzzards lead him to a corpse in Red Wing boots with a .22 bullet hole in an expensive haircut, Dolph realizes this is no ordinary norteño trying to cross the deserted border from Mexico. Is the dead man connected to Sister Quinn's efforts to help Central American political refugees find sanctuary? Is Sister Quinn, a nun who practices curanderismo , mixed up in a smuggling operation? On the border--El Camino del Rio--men and women on both sides of the river and both sides of the law think they know each other's business, but nothing is what it seems. And it is Dolph's job and his destiny to unravel the mystery. This gritty, atmospheric story, the first novel to win the Frank Waters Southwest Writing Contest, has the harsh power and heat of the Texas desert. "A richly imagined and terrifically realized novel. Complex and humane, always surprising, it rings as true as the winter light across the southern desert."--James Crumley "Mr. Sanderson is especially good at contrasting the clarity and austere natural beauty of the Chihuahuan desert with the murky, Orson Welles aura that envelops human society there."--Tom Pilkington, Dallas Morning News "[A] lean and lyrical first novel."--Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book "Makes the gritty, thankless landscape of the border come alive, from the relentless heat to the failed hopes."--Paul Skenazy, Washington Post Book World

Genres: Thriller, Mystery

227 pages, Hardcover

First published August 1, 1998

About the author

I have always been nervous about claiming to be a writer. I can't depend upon writing to eat. So to eat, I teach. Students sometimes ask me if I am a "famous arthur." I know that I am not a famous arthur.

I have collected a lot labels. I started out as a short story writer, so I have three collections of short fiction. I also started writing essays because I thought that they were easy. So I have an essay collection. I was sort of a "shade tree" sociologist in this collection.

I won a contest for a literary novel about the southwestern U.S. When the novel came out, my editor listed it as a mystery. So I started writing mysteries and have a mystery series with the same characters running around in them. Brash Books as republished three of them. I like being a republished writer.

I wrote a historical novel, which had been bubbling around in my head since I was in the fourth grade. The novel could also be a Western.

I think that I can claim that I am a Texas writer. And I don't mind being labelled a Texas writer. Mostly, because if you draw a line from Lubbock to Beaumont, I've written about parts of Texas south of that line.

One critic said that I write "grit lit.," and put me in some good company. Someone said that I wrote southwestern neo-noir.

So check out a few of my books and label me as you like. I'll probably welcome the label. However, I know that I am not a "famous arthur."

Reviews

[Kevintipple]

El Camino Del Rio

Orbiting buzzards in the desert country often indicated that a person is dead out there somewhere. Those circling buzzards did in this case as U.S. Border Patrol Officer Dolph Martinez had seen them and headed their way while pursuing a group of undocumented workers that had crossed the border and were heading through the surrounding desert. Dolph Martinez had first seen the blood on a cactus and then found the body. While it is not immediately clear whether or not the deceased person was part of that group under custody nearby, it is clear is that the deceased probably died by way of having his head opened up via gunshot and not the perils of the desert. The deceased is also wearing distinctive boots and is not the first person wearing those particular style of boots to be found dead in the surrounding desert in recent days.

Based out of the hardship duty station in Presidio, Texas, Patrol Officer Dolph Martinez, wants to investigate the case. Especially because the deceased was found clutching a vial of blue metallic liquid. One of those reasons he wants to investigate is that Sister Quinn is known to pass these vials out now and then as some sort of talisman. In a region known for eccentrics, she stands out as she is part nun and part witch doctor. Some believe she is a saint in human form while other locals claim she transforms into an owl at night, just like the souls of the dead, and flies around to perch on tombstones. She is complicated and a sign that everything is going to get very complicated fast.

Investigating a murder has little to do with his job description, so his boss shuts down that idea. Instead, the mission of the Border Patrol is to round up the folks they were tracking, process them, and send them back across the border knowing full well they are going to see them again.

But, officer Dolph Martinez can’t leave it alone and is soon talking to the nun and many other folks while running afoul of his boss, an officious DEA agent, and a number of other folks who wish he would accept life as it is in the Border county where a river does nothing to stem the flow of people and goods. The investigation may kill him, body and soul, before he is through as things are going to get complicated and weird.

This book was the 1997 Frank Waters Southwest Writing Contest winner and was published in 1998. As such, it depicts the Southwest Texas border country that I grew up with and existed before 9/11 changed everything. Because it was published over twenty years ago, it reflects language that may offend some readers today as it repeatedly refers to “wets” which is slang for “wetbacks” or illegals. It also contains some language that does not reflect women in the best way of description along with some graphic scenes of intimate sexuality. It is a book in today’s world that, at times, some would classify as “edgy” and others would call misogynistic.

Regardless of all that, there is a complicated and quite intense bordering on the surreal read at work here. The tale does not fit easily into any labeling box. I enjoyed it while conceding that the last forty pages or so delves into the surreal and issues far too complicated to be easily explained. I also concede the fact that part of my appreciation was no doubt fueled by my love for the Big Band area that dates back to my earliest childhood memories. This is not a read for everyone, but it is a very good read.

El Camino Del Rio: A Novel
Jim Sanderson
https://www.jimsanderson-writer.com/
University of New Mexico Press
August 1998
ISBN# 0-8263-1990-4
227 Pages


My reading copy came from the Downtown Branch of the Dallas Public Library System.

Kevin R. Tipple ©2021

[Chris]

The small Texas town of Presidio is a wild and desolate borderland, as border patrol agent Dolph Martinez knows—a few years back he was shot in the gut and left to die, saved from death when the town’s nun, Sister Quinn, found him. Sister Quinn is rumored by the locals to be a curandera, a witch doctor, something Dolph is inclined to agree with given the charm she gave him while he was being nursed back to health. Now, Dolph’s finding similar charms on on dead bodies—illegals in fancy clothes who took .22 slugs to the head. Somehow, these corpses are connected to Sister Quinn—a smuggling operation across the border, which one Mexican colonel is all too eager to see cleaned up. Dolph, with his tortured past unraveling before his eyes, must unravel the mystery and blow the smuggling operation wide open.

Jim Sanderson’s career has been quiet but distinguished, with two award-winning novels and two award-winning collections to his name. His first novel, El Camino Del Rio, won the Frank Waters Southwest Writing Award, and it’s easy to see why: his prose is sparse but precise, bringing beauty to the gritty, desolate landscape. The prose captures the landscape of Texas’ Big Bend, with the plot reflecting its stark isolation. Sanderson also created a great cast of screwball characters, the odd, desperate, and lonely people who end up in places on the wrong side of nowhere like Presidio. Take Dolph’s pal Pepper, who dreams of turning his delapidated hot springs and cabin complex into a profitable tourist resort, but whose main accomplishments are bringing home Mexican prostitutes every night. Or Tommy, who owns the local trading post and a beer-guzzling goat. Or the enigmatic Ariel Alves, resort manager and recent arrival; her relationship with Dolph becomes obvious, unlike her mysterious connection to Sister Quinn.

What makes Dolph Martinez interesting is that he’s in the middle of his own midlife crisis, dealing with his mixed-race heritage. There are plenty of flashbacks to Dolph’s present and past, often taking the reader out of the current plot to focus on Dolph’s love-life or the strained relationship between his parents. It’s a bit distracting with its chronological leaps—in one case, we start out watching the Border Patrol close in on some suspected drug mules, only to jump back to Dolph’s romantic camping trip from two days ago, which then jumps back to the death of Dolph’s drunken father. Combined with the fact that each chapter feels like its own, contained short-story, early chapters in the novel wasn’t always engaging. Once the pieces are in place, the plot start moving at a steady clip. And I have to applaud Sanderson for trying something new—I’ve seen plenty of haunted, alcoholic protagonists before, but having one struggle through midlife crisis and race issues is a unique twist.

El Camino Del Rio has its imperfections, but I think it makes up for some of those with its literate and detailed look at a moral and political borderland. In our post-9/11 world, a border town on an open, porous border seems almost improbable, but Sanderson’s novel gives the reader a vivid portrayal of an isolated Texas town caught somewhere between the border, mirrored by protagonist Dolph, also caught between two sides of his life. A well-realized novel rich in natural beauty, El Camino Del Rio is a smart, capable novel. If you like literate mystery-thrillers from the ’80s/’90s, especially those with strong western themes, El Camino Del Rio is worth a look.

[Julian Rasbury]

I read this book twenty years ago and loved it. Now, after living in la frontetra for the past twelve years, I read it again and loved it more. Sanderson will put you on the border in the desert and make you feel and taste the air and sometimes its dusty wind-blown powder.

[Greg Hill]

El Camino Del Rio

Jim Sanderson is a new author to me. He has done an outstanding job creating a hero who is strong, struggles between two worlds and is flawed. This story was well written, interesting, and I look forward to the next book in this series.

[F.E. Jr.]

I just finished reading El Camino Del Rio by Jim Sanderson
I read Steinbeck back in college, and Sanderson—like Steinbeck—doesn't color anything for the sensitive heart. He takes the Border and shoves it in the reader's face, with all its moral ambiguity, forcing us to confront the stark reality of life on the edge of the world.
Adolph "Dolph" Martinez is a 5'6" Border Patrol agent whose days and nights are lived beyond the world of the polite, the politically correct, and the swaggering cowboy mythology Hollywood sold to generations of middle-aged white men. John Wayne included.
Martinez lives in the world as it is, raging against things as they are while understanding that he has become as much a part of that landscape as the mesquite, the cactus, and the creosote. He chases border crossers, arrests them, turns them back, and when he discovers two of them murdered, the stakes rise as high as the mesas on the horizon.
This is the West—or what remains of it. It is the world shaped by public policy, the war on drugs, cartels, and the people trapped between the unintended consequences of other people's good intentions.
It's a place most people don't want to know. Even those who vacation at the resorts scattered across the region to swim, golf, and enjoy a sanitized taste of Mexico rarely glimpse the reality just beyond the postcard.
Yet Sanderson never lets the reader look away. As remarkable as his prose is, and as breathtaking as his descriptions of the desert and its weather are, his greatest strength is his insistence on bearing witness. He refuses to flinch from the contradictions, the violence, the humanity, and the impossible choices that define life along the Border.
El Camino Del Rio isn't interested in comforting its readers. It is interested in showing them a world that exists whether they choose to acknowledge it or not. And that, my friends, makes El Camino Del Rio art.

[Fred]

I started this book several times and then put it away. I finally finished reading it. It isn't a book you would want to read if you were feeling down. The novel paints a bleak picture of life on the Texas-Mexico border. The main character, Dolph Martinez, is a border patrol agent who discovers the bodies of murdered Mexicans close to the border. The problems of the drug cartels running drugs across the border, illegal immigrants who are victims of their poverty, and random acts of violence towards them as well as the general lack of hope in the area make for a dismal picture. The book is well written, but not what I would think of as pleasant reading.

[E.R. Yatscoff]

Interesting info on the border policing with all its orgs. Problem is no suspense or menace considering all the crime going on. Border Agent Dolph goes thru the motions. There were a few transition problems which confused me. Considering the author is an English degree guy he, or an agent/editor, should have caught these. All that's needed sometimes is an asterisk.

[terry l sartin]

I did not enjoy

The story was was not really clear to me. To many things going on during story that never got totally
Explained the main character was not clear on what he was even after.

[Gary L. Carter]

A compelling read

This is novel works on so many levels it could be ripped from today’s headlines. For this to be a first time novelist is amazing.I look forward to watching the author polishing his craft.

[Billy]

NOT FOR. ME

Others might enjoy this book, I kept reading being optimistic it would eventually get better, unfortunately
It did not happen.

[Marty]

Wets

I don't care for the term so I won't read your book. Too many racist terms weigh down this book. Unfortunate.

[Melanie]

This book is a MAGA republicans racism and misogyny fantasy. Don't bother reading it.

[Philip Bailey]

As timely a story now as it was when originally written. Colorful if somewhat crazy characters in a section of Texas noted for its scenic drive along El Camino del Rio. It is noted also as an area where crossing the Rio Grande to and from Mexico is a frequent occurrence, albeit illegal most of the time as drugs and people are smuggled into the USA. The U. S. Border Customs and Patrol, also known as U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement (a.k.a. ICE) are tasked with policing this area to catch those illegals, and so the basis for this story as Border Patrol agent Dolph engages with the many characters living in this somewhat desolate area. He and his fellow agents play a game of catch the bad guys. The score shifts back and forth and more often than not figuring out who the bad guys are is as tough as catching them in the act. A well-crafted tale with a plot sure to keep the reader engaged. A sprinkling of Spanish lends authenticity but a Spanish/English dictionary will likely not have translations for some of the slang, this is no hindrance to the story if you allow yourself to glaze over the foreign speak. A recommendable adventure read.

[Barbra]

This was a book that I was required to read in college or either one that my instructor had written. No way was I going there!

El Camino del Rio was a hard read. Unless you can read and speak Spanish, you are lost. The characters are over developed as they are introduced into the story line which makes one wonder "where all this info is going?"

Having personal knowlegde of the area of El Camino del Rio, I must say that the author was exact in his description of the land.

I made and "A" with an attitude on my review of this book. In fact, if it contained less Spanish, I may have enjoyed it much more...I couldn't afford a translator.

[Jay Williams]

This book uses a small Texas town on the Mexican border to display the grit and gold in the lives of a border patrol officer, his friends and lovers. The characters all well-defined and quite unique, and the story draws the reader in until you can't put it down. The writing is simple and direct, but carries enough description to create a very different set of images in the reader's mind. The intricate relationships between the Federal, state, local, and Mexican authorities are portrayed in detail as the story is told. The result is entertaining and suspenseful. You'll want to read it again to savor some of the actions and images.

[Fredrick Danysh]

A border patrol agent on the Texas border bin the Big Bend area discovers murdered illegals and attempts to solve the murders. He has to deal with a former nun who has set up her own temple, drug and gun smugglers, and his own ghosts. A good read.

[Mike Speer]

Thoroughly enjoyed it

I don't understand the poor reviews. Maybe they are from a too young or unaware group. Having lived in Southwest Texas, the characters are saner than some of the real people I've met.

[Janice]

Great job of portraying life along the border.