Border Rats by Patricia Cleary – A Mexican Border Crime Mystery Novel

“Cassandra,” Nardo barked, “Angela is with me. Keep others quiet. If something goes wrong…”

He drew a line across her neck. Cassandra couldn’t see Angela’s eyes, but her forehead was dripping with sweat.

“Angela,” Cassandra yelled, “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Nardo laughed, “she’ll have fun.”

Whatever demons plagued him, he was determined to make them all suffer. as if that would ease his suffering.

The life of sixteen-year-old Cassandra is turned upside down by the appearance of the handsome and mysterious Félix Treviño. Like Cinderella and her prince, Cassandra meets him one night and the next he disappears into faraway Mexico. When she is granted a vacation to visit her father, Sal, in San Diego, she imagines crossing the border with him to go to work. But now she’s wearing faded jeans, not a business suit, and a tattoo on her shoulder. Then a shadowy figure, the notorious drug lord Nardo Urtegui, emerges and his father disappears.

Cassandra is forced to search for him in the dirty underbelly of Tijuana, where anything and everything is possible. Her friend Angela, a border rat from the streets, hears that Felix is ​​in league with Nardo. Can this be true? Worse yet, Nardo wants Cassandra, he wants her father’s hotel, and he won’t be satisfied until he has them both. Cassandra must outsmart him, find out if Felix is ​​a criminal, and hope to stay alive.

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