"Have you ever wondered, Mister Esperanza, about the nature of evil. . .?" Nicholas Esperanza couldn't believe his luck. A winning $30 million lotto ticket took him out of NYPD Homicide and bought him Sueño Latino, a popular salsa club on Manhattan's Upper West Side. Dancing, drinking, partying, women--every day was a good day. The nights with his girlfriend, Legs, are even hotter. But now, Legs needs Esperanza to do her a solid: find her missing 14-year-old niece, Alina. With that, Esperanza's luck is about to change.
Before he knows it, Esperanza's plunged into a dangerous sexual underground of S&M clubs, fetishists, pornography, and murder. Anything can be bought and sold, especially innocence. The most beautiful faces mask the most vicious predators. As the quest gets more personal, and the lines between good and evil blur, Esperanza spirals into the darkest recesses of his soul, to places he never wanted to see. He's in so deep that turning back is not an option.
With The Devil's Mambo, Jerry A. Rodriguez delivers a gritty, wholly original urban noir--an adrenaline-charged, erotic thriller that's as twisted as it is addictive.
"Follow Nick Esperanza on his descent into the artfully portrayed dark and. . .seamy underbelly of the big, bad city." --Gary Phillips, Bangers
"A wild ride on the wild side. Rodriguez pulls no punches." --Rick Mofina, The Dying Hour
"The Devil's Mambo is dark, bad and gave me a case of the serious creeps. Heavy, tough stuff but also unputdownable. Rodriguez is working mean streets that haven't been worked before. He's the real thing. Dig this book." --Robert Ward, author of "Four Kinds of Rain".
Jerry A. Rodriguez is a writer-director who has staged dozens of plays Off Broadway and has conducted film-making workshops for such places as the Film Society of Lincoln Center. He wrote and directed the critically acclaimed short film, El Deseo, which was heralded by the Village Voice as "a Sydney Lumet-like gangster saga that revels in the beauty of the Puerto Rican visage." Jerry directed Problems of the World Today for Warner/Elektra, one of the very first Hip Hop videos to premiere on national television by the first rap group to be signed to a major record label. His writing will be featured in the upcoming short story anthologies, The Darker Mask and Bronx Biannaul II. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.
