The Last Hanging of Ángel Martinez

By Kate Niles

Book Overview

Winner of the 2025 Zia Book Award from New Mexico Press Women

2024 Foreword INDIES Silver Winner for Mystery

In Taos County, New Mexico, probation officer Nina Montgomery thinks she knows all about ngel 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 ngel--Nina most of all.

When ngel'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 ngel's and Liza's lives, she is surprised to learn that ngel is a santero artist on the rise. A talented but struggling ceramic artist herself, Nina finds her worlds colliding when a Hollywood celebrity wants her art just as the entanglements of ngel'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.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0826367046
• ISBN13: 9780826367044
• Release Date: October 2024
• Publisher: Unm Press
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.4" x 8.2"