Colorado Authors Hall of Fame
The Los Angeles Times observed that “he is known as a crime writer,
but that doesn’t quite capture what he does. His books are
love stories, political dramas, mordant cautionary tales."
Short Story Collections & Anthologies
"The stories are clever and sometimes funny, but their real strength is the way they capture today's Latinos — the talk and humor, the swagger and irony. The stories bring to life the contemporary culture of north Denver, the Southwest and Mexico. Ramos has a rich voice. He nails it."
Sandra Dallas in The Denver Post
The Skull of Pancho Villa
Denver Noir
Award-Winning Anthology
Northside Nocturne is included in the collection Denver Noir, edited by Cynthia Swanson for Akashic Books. Publishers Weekly praised the story: “Another high point is Manuel Ramos's powerful Northside Nocturne, which explores gentrification and racial hostility as rising violence, vigilantism, fear, and suspicion tear through a previously tight-knit community." And the Denver Post said the story was "among the best" with a "strong sense of place ... filled with racial tension and inevitable gloom." Denver Noir won the 2023 Colorado Book Award in the Anthology category. Order from Akashic Books.
Culprits
Some stories are all about the crime. These stories are about the maelstrom of what happens after... A hard-bitten crew of professional thieves pull off the score of their lives, coming away with seven million in cash. Like any heist there are some unforeseen complications, and unfortunately they don’t get away without a few bodies dropping. But despite this, they get away with the swag. Seven million. Enough to change their lives, make new identities, start fresh. But that’s when the real trouble begins... In this unique, riveting, linked anthology, we follow each member of the crew of culprits as they go their separate ways after the heist and watch as this perfect score ends up a perfect nightmare. Featuring stories penned by acclaimed writers Brett Battles, Gar Anthony Haywood, Zoë Sharp, Manuel Ramos, Jessica Kaye, Joe Clifford and David Corbett, CULPRITS examines what happens next to these criminals once they take their cut and go their separate ways, only to find that the end of the heist was the beginning of their troubles.
When two gun-toting hoodlums tell the fourteen-year-old narrator of René Saldaña’s story, “The Right Size,” to kiss the floor, he doesn’t think twice. And his dad and younger brother drop to the floor just as quickly. “This guy Jimmy probably thinks Dad is the greatest threat among the three of us, but he’s dead wrong. Dad couldn’t hurt a bug,” the boy thinks. In the ensuing twenty minutes, he learns that his dad isn’t as weak as he thought, and in fact, his dad is willing to do whatever it takes to protect his family, even if it means killing someone.
The teens featured in these stories deal with situations typical to all young adults, including attraction to the opposite sex—or to the same sex, in one story—and first sexual encounters, problems with family and friends, academic and personal aspirations.
But they also deal with every kind of thrilling situation imaginable, from missing girls to kidnappings and dismembered bodies. A young girl finds herself living with her “family,” though she has no memory of them or who they claim she is. A geek at a prestigious public high school finds himself working with his very attractive arch-rival to solve the mystery of a severed, bloody arm that appears inexplicably in his locker. And Mike’s life sucks when his parents split up, but it gets worse when his best friend is abducted by a thug shot by Mike’s dad, a police officer. There’s something for everyone here, with aliens, ghosts and even an Aztec goddess making appearances in these stories.
Set in schools and communities from New York City to Venice Beach, California, the protagonists reflect the breadth and diversity of the Latino authors included in this innovative collection. Published authors such as Manuel Ramos, Mario Acevedo, Alicia Gaspar de Alba, Diana López and Sergio Troncoso appear alongside less well-known authors who deserve more recognition. With an introduction by young adult literature expert Dr. James Blasingame of Arizona State University, this collection is sure to keep readers on the edge of their seats until the last page is turned.
You Don't Have a Clue
In Lucha Corpi’s story, “Hollow Point at the Synapses,” her unique narrator—a bullet—describes the instant before killing a young Peruvian woman: “I feel the pull of the hammer. The pressure mounts. I am now in place. The moment is upon me. Swiftly and efficiently, I will do what I must, what I was created for. In an instant, I am off, traveling at a speed reserved only for death.”
This groundbreaking anthology of short fiction by Latino mystery writers, Hit List: The Best of Latino Mystery, features an intriguing and unpredictable cast of sleuths, murderers and crime victims. Reflecting the authors’—and society’s—preoccupation with identity, self, and territory, the stories run the gamut of the mystery genre, from traditional to noir, from the private investigator to the police procedural, and even a “chick lit” mystery.
“The Right Profile” features a Miami private investigator who goes undercover to prove a deadbeat father can pay child support, and she delights in testifying against him in court. In “The Skull of Pancho Villa,” someone has stolen the family heirloom and it’s up to Gus Corral to get it back. And in “A New York Chicano,” a successful bachelor from El Paso—a graduate of NYU working for Merrill Lynch in Manhattan—gets his revenge against a xenophobic newscaster.
Hit List collects for the first time short fiction by many of the Latino authors who have been pioneers in the mystery genre, using it to showcase their unique cultures, neighborhoods and realities. Contributors include award-winning writers such as Carolina García-Aguilera, Alicia Gaspar de Alba, Rolando Hinojosa, Manuel Ramos and Sergio Troncoso, as well as emerging writers who deserve more recognition.
Hit List
As detective fiction has slowly earned critical respect, more authors from minority groups have chosen it as their medium. Chicana/o authors, previously reluctant to write in an underestimated genre that might further marginalize them, have only entered the world of detective fiction in the past two decades. In this book, the first comprehensive study of Chicano/a detective fiction, Ralph E. Rodriguez examines the recent contributions to the genre by writers such as Rudolfo Anaya, Lucha Corpi, Rolando Hinojosa, Michael Nava, and Manuel Ramos. Their works reveal the struggles of Chicanas/os with feminism, homosexuality, familia, masculinity, mysticism, the nationalist subject, and U.S.-Mexico border relations. He maintains that their novels register crucial new discourses of identity, politics, and cultural citizenship that cannot be understood apart from the historical instability following the demise of the nationalist politics of the Chicana/o movement of the 1960s and 1970s.
Brown Gumshoes
Since 1985 Chicano writers have embraced the detective novel, successfully diversifying and refining a traditional Anglo American and British genre.
The 21 whodunits of Hinojosa, Rudolfo Anaya, Lucha Corpi, Michael Nava and Manuel Ramos are closely studied in this groundbreaking work. The models, both contemporary and Romantic, of this relatively new Chicano genre are first discussed. Next come detailed analysis and reviews of such novels as Shaman Winter, Partners in Crime, Cactus Blood and 18 others, focusing on how each writer departs from contemporary detective genre formula, uniquely rendering a particular regional or cultural variation of what it means to be Chicano. It is this departure from the norm that defines these writings and distinguishes them from the Anglo American and British whodunit. Interviews with the writers conclude the work.
Chicano Detective Fiction
The Cocaine Chronicles
Nothing to snort at, this ambitious anthology of jaw-grinding criminal behavior is masterfully curated by acclaimed authors Phillips and Tervalon. Cocaine, that most troubling and fascinating of substances, is the subject, the subtext, the whys and whereofs in The Cocaine Chronicles, a collection of original short stories that are funny and harrowing, sad and scary, but at all times riveting. The Cocaine Chronicles contains tough tales by a cross-section of today's most thought-provoking writers.
Contributors:Susan Straight, Lee Child, Laura Lippman, Ken Bruen, Jerry Stahl, Nina Revoyr, Bill Moody, Emory Holmes II, James Brown, Gary Phillips, Jervey Tervalon, Kerry E. West, Donnell Alexander, Deborah Vankin, Robert Ward, Manuel Ramos, and Detrice Jones.