1
/
of
1
Marc Cortez
A Gangster's Garden
A Gangster's Garden
Regular price
$2.99 USD
Regular price
Sale price
$2.99 USD
Shipping calculated at checkout.
Quantity
Couldn't load pickup availability
Deep in the heart of Denver’s Five Points varrio, an innocent teenage boy is killed in a gang-related shooting.
The intended target, gang-leader Benicio de los Santos, assembles his Latin Disciples into a Denver basement to plot their revenge. Does it matter that the hit planned for him killed an innocent boy? No. What matters is how careless his main enemy, the Sureño Daggers, have become. His cholo brethren demand the bloody removal of their enemy's chief, King Diaz, and the quick takeover of Sureño drug turf. But Santos recalls a lesson from Sun Tzu - that true generalship destroys rather than counters enemy plans - and so commands his soldados to do nothing. He’ll avenge his wife and son’s murder on his terms, when he decides.
King Diaz knows that payback for the botched hit is coming; he just doesn’t know when. And though he’s ordered his Sureño Daggers to be on high alert for retaliation, he hates doing nothing. No matter, logic had never served him well anyways. Better to stab your way to answers than think your way into a corner.
-----------------------------
Across town, a family learns of their son’s murder and struggles to come to terms with it. Businessman Miguel Rodriguez wonders what led his son down to the varrio in the first place, the very streets he’d fought so hard to overcome. He’d renamed his son precisely to distance him from their varrio past, despite the repeated protests of his wife Carmela. Wouldn’t life as a white Julian Ross, mingling with Denver’s elite, offer more than a brown Julio Rodriguez? They’d fought about the change for years. And now, as the news of Julian’s murder sinks in, Miguel realizes that today’s fight will be the last conversation he will ever have with his son.
Carmela Rodriguez feels her son’s loss down deep inside her belly, as only a mother can. Julian had been her bridge: her bridge to Miguel, her bridge to love, maybe even her bridge to the other, better side of herself. And without him she is more than lost; she’s incomplete. Why hadn’t she fought harder to resist Miguel’s misplaced wishes, his desire to whitewash their son? Why couldn’t she have convinced Miguel to let Julian find his own path? Now, her failure is total. Not only is she no longer a mother, perhaps she’d never really been one at all.
Miguel enlists his brother Rinaldo, a reformed Original Gangster, to lead them back into the varrio to investigate Julian’s murder. Rinaldo reopens old doors – and old wounds – and brings Miguel and Carmela into their old neighborhood to meet Julian’s friends, members of the gang set Rinaldo had ruled for so long. While Miguel struggles with the realization that members of the Latin Disciples knew Julian better than he did, Carmela confronts a different reality: Julian’s girlfriend Victoria Merto. Carmela sees Victoria as the path back to her own son, and embraces her with a mother’s love.
-----------------------------
Set in Denver, A GANGSTER’S GARDEN follows Miguel, Carmela and Rinaldo Rodriguez as they return to their childhood streets to resolve Julian’s murder. A GANGSTER’S GARDEN also follows Benicio de los Santos, charismatic and strategic leader of the Latin Disciples, as he plots his murdered family’s revenge against King Diaz, head of the Sureño Daggers. Their gangster struggle builds to an explosive crescendo, with a thriller finale.
The intended target, gang-leader Benicio de los Santos, assembles his Latin Disciples into a Denver basement to plot their revenge. Does it matter that the hit planned for him killed an innocent boy? No. What matters is how careless his main enemy, the Sureño Daggers, have become. His cholo brethren demand the bloody removal of their enemy's chief, King Diaz, and the quick takeover of Sureño drug turf. But Santos recalls a lesson from Sun Tzu - that true generalship destroys rather than counters enemy plans - and so commands his soldados to do nothing. He’ll avenge his wife and son’s murder on his terms, when he decides.
King Diaz knows that payback for the botched hit is coming; he just doesn’t know when. And though he’s ordered his Sureño Daggers to be on high alert for retaliation, he hates doing nothing. No matter, logic had never served him well anyways. Better to stab your way to answers than think your way into a corner.
-----------------------------
Across town, a family learns of their son’s murder and struggles to come to terms with it. Businessman Miguel Rodriguez wonders what led his son down to the varrio in the first place, the very streets he’d fought so hard to overcome. He’d renamed his son precisely to distance him from their varrio past, despite the repeated protests of his wife Carmela. Wouldn’t life as a white Julian Ross, mingling with Denver’s elite, offer more than a brown Julio Rodriguez? They’d fought about the change for years. And now, as the news of Julian’s murder sinks in, Miguel realizes that today’s fight will be the last conversation he will ever have with his son.
Carmela Rodriguez feels her son’s loss down deep inside her belly, as only a mother can. Julian had been her bridge: her bridge to Miguel, her bridge to love, maybe even her bridge to the other, better side of herself. And without him she is more than lost; she’s incomplete. Why hadn’t she fought harder to resist Miguel’s misplaced wishes, his desire to whitewash their son? Why couldn’t she have convinced Miguel to let Julian find his own path? Now, her failure is total. Not only is she no longer a mother, perhaps she’d never really been one at all.
Miguel enlists his brother Rinaldo, a reformed Original Gangster, to lead them back into the varrio to investigate Julian’s murder. Rinaldo reopens old doors – and old wounds – and brings Miguel and Carmela into their old neighborhood to meet Julian’s friends, members of the gang set Rinaldo had ruled for so long. While Miguel struggles with the realization that members of the Latin Disciples knew Julian better than he did, Carmela confronts a different reality: Julian’s girlfriend Victoria Merto. Carmela sees Victoria as the path back to her own son, and embraces her with a mother’s love.
-----------------------------
Set in Denver, A GANGSTER’S GARDEN follows Miguel, Carmela and Rinaldo Rodriguez as they return to their childhood streets to resolve Julian’s murder. A GANGSTER’S GARDEN also follows Benicio de los Santos, charismatic and strategic leader of the Latin Disciples, as he plots his murdered family’s revenge against King Diaz, head of the Sureño Daggers. Their gangster struggle builds to an explosive crescendo, with a thriller finale.
Share
