Ahead, I saw the tall concrete wall painted the color of Meyer
lemons. Terminal de Autobuses was emblazoned in thick black letters. Behind the station a hill rose, half covered in foliage, with orange-roofed buildings poking their heads up like school children. The sky was painted the perfect blue, a light breeze cooled my sweaty neck, and the events of the last couple of hours faded with the distant cries of gulls.

My friend Craig Terlson was kind enough to send me an advance copy his next novel Sayulita Sucker, now available for pre-order. It’s a shorter book (a short story is appended for good measure), but features Terlson’s usual excellent neo-hardboiled prose.

Luke Fischer, our continuing hero, is a Canadian expatriate, living as a beach bum near Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. He subsists on the hospitality of his patron, Benno, a genial crime boss. From time to time Benno takes advantage of Luke’s size, strength, and fighting skills to help him out with various small problems.

Benno is out of town as Sayulita Sucker begins, and Luke is approached by a man who claims to be a friend of his. He has a daughter, he says, who has always been a little wild. Now she’s disappeared, and he fears she might have fallen into the hands of traffickers. He has an idea she’s being held in a town a little way north up the coast. Luke agrees to go and look, and takes a bus up. Clues lead him to another town called Sayulita, and violence ensues.

Luke is a laconic character, and his ability to handle himself in a fight always surprises me a little. He strikes me as sort of a cross between Travis McGee and Jeff Lebowski. His investigative technique mostly involves sitting in bars and hotel lounges until somebody takes offense at one of his questions and tries to kill him. The whole story had, for this reader, a kind of dream-like quality.

Quite an enjoyable story, adorned by the author’s excellent prose and dialogue. Recommended. Cautions for language.