DR. MEL'S MUST-READ CHOICE!
Gone to the Ground by Morgan HatchJavier Jimenez is on a glide path to college. His younger brother, Alex, is trending in the other direction, having traded in his schoolboy haircut for a cholo buzz. Their mother, constantly saddled with double shifts at the rendering plant, goes deep into the recipe file to keep Alex in her orbit, but she makes no secret of her reliance on Javier to be both a human tether for Alex as well as a provider for the family bank account. When Javier comes across a burner phone at work, his life is slowly drawn into the crosshairs of George Jones. Some people flip homes, Jones flips zip codes. His goal? Tax credits for his hedge fund. But to get the best deal, he must drive down values, and to do this, he sets in motion a range of threats and bribes to displace an entire the residents of a working class community known as Barrio Horseshoe, or just the Shoe, with a wave of creatives, influencers, and start-ups. All in the span of nine months.
Bodies start to fall. First, a beloved community figure is victim to a suspicious hit-and-run. Then Javier’s teacher dies under similarly unusual circumstances prompting Javier to finally take action. His plot to outmaneuver Jones is a long shot, but he has the advantage of knowing the last card Jones expects to play. Jones pins his payday on his closely guarded secret that the new LA terminus of the bullet train is none other than Shoe. Can Javier find a way to throw a wrench in Jones’s plans, all the while keeping Alex from disappearing into the streets?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
I make a mean Turkish flatbread and bootleg most of my streaming services.
