Jimmy (Royal) Payne, a down-on-his-luck lawyer, battles cops, coyotes, and a corrupt and powerful rancher, as he tracks a beautiful Mexican woman who disappeared on a midnight border crossing, and is swept into the world of human trafficking.
Haunted by a tragedy in his past and wanted by the cops for his latest malfeasance, Jimmy Payne needs to skip town. That’s when he crosses paths with twelve-year-old Tino Perez, newly arrived from Mexico with no money and no papers. The gutsy kid first robs Payne, then pleads for his help. Marisol, the boy’s mother, is missing, after crossing the border with a vicious coyote.
Following a chain of greed, corruption, and betrayal, Payne traces Marisol’s steps from Mexicali to California’s Hellhole Canyon. Before long, the cynical lawyer and the savvy kid are bonding…and battling predators on both sides of the border. It’s the two of them against an army of cops, coyotes, vigilantes, and sex slavers. Most dangerous of all is Simeon Rutledge, a wealthy rancher and the biggest employer of farm workers in California.
Just why is Rutledge willing to bribe Payne—or kill him—to keep Marisol under wraps? Will Payne’s quest redeem his mistakes and resurrect his dead marriage—or get him buried in a shallow grave? Either way, he’ll find out there’s no escaping his past.
From the shadows of migrant stash houses to the fertile fields of the San Joaquin Valley, Illegal delivers a searing mix of live-wire prose, shattering violence, and rich characterization, all set against a backdrop of larger social issues.
