Central Kansas Library System

John Grady Cole, a 16-year-old dispossessed Texan, crosses the Rio Grande into Mexico in 1949, accompanied by his pal Lacey Rawlins. The two precocious horsemen pick up a sidekick--a laughable but deadly marksman named Jimmy Blevins--encounter various adventures on their way south and finally arrive at a paradisiacal hacienda where Cole falls into an ill-fated romance.

A black woman banker is torn between her ambition to succeed professionally and her loyalty to other blacks. The protagonist is Esther Jackson, operations manager for a downtown Los Angeles bank. The events take place in the aftermath of the Rodney King riots. By the author of Your Blues Ain't Like Mine.