The Death of Friends

L.A. criminal defense lawyer Henry Rios has become a champion of outcasts in a city offering them little justice and less compassion. But Zack Bowen is more than just a client. Claiming to be the lover of Rios's longtime friend Chris Chandler, Zack has found Chandler brutally murdered. And now Zack needs a lawyer.

Rios's instinct is to believe his protestations of innocence, even though Zack quickly disappears. Now Rios must track him down through the earthquake-torn Valley, traversing the sleazy landscapes of Zack's past. He must discover why Chris--a staunch family man, resolutely in the closet--abandoned his wife and son and risked his career for an affair. What other secrets was he hiding? As Rios uses every legal twist to unravel the mystery of his friend's life and the riddle of his death, he glimpses the answer in the dark mirror of his own soul....

The latest Henry Rios mystery finds Michael Nava's gay Mexican-American lawyer under severe stress as he defends an L.A. street hustler. One of Rios's former lovers has been murdered; another is nearing death from AIDS. Nava strives for emotional depth and social relevance in his tough tales, told with Chandler-esque language. Rios describes himself best: "I was a magnet for the desperate, frightened and reviled, who somehow or other had heard about the fag lawyer who was a sap for a sad story."