Death of a Nationalist, by Rebecca C. Pawel.

Rebecca C. Pawel and UTEP's Spring 2007 Detective Fiction Classes:

A new literary star in the firmament?

Right off hand, I'd say so! By age twenty-five her first novel was in full swing, and the lead character was already busily establishing his family, as UTEP Detective Fiction professors define the term.

Death of a Nationalist, by Rebecca C. Pawel

"A Carlos Tejada Alonso y León Investigation."

As Cara Black, author of Murder in the Marais, tells us:

"Taut and gripping. Death of a Nationalist captures civil war-weary Madrid, from the bomb-blackened buidings to the eerie deserted Metro.

"Pawel paints the sights, sounds, and hunger of the city with a raw, insightful brush wonderful and rare in a first novel."

To which Dan Fesperman, of Lie in the Dark fame, adds:

"With prose as straigtforward as an officer's salute, Rebecca Pawel weaves an intriguing tale amid the gloom of war-torn Madrid.

"It is a humane and moving portrait of a divided people coming to grips with the virtues of enemies and the villainy of friends."

To all of which, yo, sus humilde servidor, can't but agree:

"Forget the mere fact that the author's last name is curiously similar to that attributed to the late Pope John Paul II by novelist James Michener: Pawel.

"Folks, this ain't your average run of the mill example of some specialized UTEP Spring 2007 Chick-lit Detective Fiction class.

"Not when the manly heroe feels kinda down and glum at the realization that he's just summariy executed the wrong chick by blowing her away in a dark alley some place.

"But hell, as even he realizes: war is like that sometimes. Besides the ersatz coffee really sucks.

"The author hooked me big time early on with these memorable lines:"

We think the murderer's a Red, Lieutenant, Jiménez explained.

Sergeant Tejada reflected that saying a Red was a murderer was rather like saying that the sun rose in the east. Why do you think that, Guardia? he asked.

The victim was a guardia civil, sir. Rank of corporal, sir.

"That did it for me. From that point on I was hooked, big time!"

Death of a Nationalist, by Rebecca C. Pawel.

"Available at the UTEP Library's browsing section..."