I like seeing the flaws in Henry's character emerge. Up to this point, he's seemed a little saintly: flawed by his alcoholism and his new sobriety. But here we see his temper, and the limits to his self-control and empathy.

A dark story, exploring the lines between homosexuality and pedophilia, but maybe one of the most interesting in the series. ( )

3 1/2 stars A quick, enjoyable read, interesting narrator and characters all around. It's interesting to get the lawyer's point of view for a change. Definitely going to find the rest of the series.

4 stars Gregory St. John really brings Henry to life. ( )

From one pandemic to another - Covid to AiIDS.

I’ve just finished reading a series of 7 novels set over the period from the early 1980’s to the mid 1990’s in California and the period of the emergence of AIDS until the development of antivirals to treat the virus. While all the books in the series are excellent, Howtown I think is exceptional and deserves 5 stars

The novels are in the noir crime fiction genre – a la Dashiell Hammett and Philip Marlowe – and are written by Michael Nava, a Californian of Mexican heritage. After a literature degree from Colorado College, Nava went to Stanford to do law and worked in criminal defence in Los Angeles and, at the end of his career, in San Francisco, to 2016. Nava’s central character is criminal defence attorney Henry Rios who, like Nava is of Mexican heritage and a gay man.

The novels are superbly well written, and though of the gumshoe crime fiction tradition, I found great parallels in their structure, focus, and dovetailing of metaphor, with the writing of Jane Austen! Michael Nava’s novels are within the parameter of California criminal legal system. The novelist posits one group against another – groups represent social norms or biases. Given the vagaries of the legal system where full exploration right or wrong is expected but not always delivered, the central character, Henry Rios, needs to do his own investigation to ensure moral justice is in place. And, while Henry attends to the particular case that is the focus of the novel, his own life continues with the minutia and upset and happiness any life has. The tension drives the plot making these novels pare turners.

They are each in the $5 range on Kindle and in the time order of the tale start with “Lay Your Sleeping Head”, Carved in Bone”, “Howtown”, “The Hidden Law”, “The Death of Friends”, “The Burning Plain”, “Rag and Bone”. ( )

The best part of this Henry Rios novel is the ethical, moral and justice dilemma Henry is facing. Rios has made peace with all three of these with pain and time. But the call for help from his estranged sister to defend his childhood best friend brother makes Henry face those issues again. Defending the almost indefensible, a child molester accused of murder, Henry untangles dark secrets and hangs on to the notion that justice is important even if the person is morally and ethically no worth it. ( )

Lawyer Henry Rios travels north to the area where he grew up to take a case as a favor to his estranged sister. Henry had a very painful childhood as did his sister but they both had led their past in different ways.He refers to his hometown as How Town, a phrase taken from an E. E. Cummings poem called 'anyone lived in a pretty how town'.

"women and men (both little and small)
cared for anyone not at all
they sowed their isn't they reaped their same
sun moon stars and rain....'

The case is a difficult one involving a pedophile who has purportedly committed murder. Under another circumstances he would have refused the brief but he does want to help his sister and their by her friend. It means meeting old friends whose reactions to him he is unsure of, but immediately he realizes that there is something very wrong in the city of Los Robles amidst the politicos, the overhand shakers as well as the police. Henry believes the truth must come out one way or another and he has to step lively or he will be steam rolled into the ground.

Henry Rios is a complex character with many shadows in his life but at least during this book he tries to stay in the sun. ( )