February 2016
On Sale: February 15, 2016
Featuring: Callie Snowden; B.J. Carleton
230 pages ISBN: 1682811204 EAN: 9781633755574 Kindle: B01B1NC25K e-Book Add to Wish List
In addition to my love for romantic suspense, I have a fondness for non-fiction.
Really, truth can be stranger than fiction. I think research is fun, but more
importantly, I wanted my story to feel as real as possible. SURRENDER AT THE BORDER
takes place mostly in Cuidad Juarez, Mexico, and my research led to some
fascinating and scary things that really exist.
The Feds vs. the Librarians. Surrender opens
with B.J., an ATF agent, investigating a case by getting information from
library computers. This is in opposition of everything Callie, the head
librarian, believes in. This conflict comes directly from my own days as a
librarian. Even before the Patriot Act, law enforcement officials targeted the
reading habits of people who were, for one reason or another, suspicious.
Librarians saw this as a violation of every citizen’s constitutionally protected
right to privacy and developed policies and procedures to handle just this kind
of situation. So if you see a television program where a cop goes up to a
librarian and asks what so-and-so has been reading, a real librarian would
refuse or at least make a fuss.
“Murder Capital of the World.” As the story line for
Surrender evolved, the privacy issue took a back seat to much bigger
issues. Horrendous violence between drug cartels erupted in Mexico and left the
world stunned. In 2010, Juarez was declared “Murder Capital of the World,” and
the majority of Americans, and even Texans, were surprised by the danger lurking
so closely to its border. Life for the ordinary citizen in Juarez became
paralyzed in light of this violence and I was reminded of Sarajevo and Baghdad
where people daily faced gunshots and bloodshed to simply find something to eat.
The violence has settled down enough that the Pope traveled to Juarez as part of
his visit to Mexico, but travel warnings are still in place from the U. S. State
department.
Not all drug cartel criminals are from Mexico. In
Surrender, the villain is actually a U. S. citizen who cashes in on
cartel money that is mere hours from the border with Texas. Karl is a gun
smuggler who takes advantage of his location and the ability to buy guns in the
U. S. The phenomenon of American cartel criminals is nothing new. One of
Mexico’s most notorious drug lords was Edgar Valdez Villareal, an American who
was drawn into the drug business and became successful because he could easily
move between countries. He is known as La Barbie because of his blond hair.
Outside of Juarez, there is a horse painted on the side of the
mountain, which is a replica of a famous geoglyph in England known as
the Uffington White Horse. Both chalk figures are something of a mystery. The
one in England is thought to date back to the Iron Age (800 BC-AD 1000) and its
purpose is unknown. The horse outside of Cuidad Juarez is its own mystery. Some
say a drug lord “ordered” it. Juarez architect Hector Garcia Acosta takes credit
for it, saying it was a problem-solving exercise he did with his son.
El Pastor, the shadowy man who has an asylum in the Juarez
Mountains, is really Jose Antonio Galvan. His mission serves the mentally ill
homeless he finds in Juarez. The story B.J. and Callie hear about the people
being dumped onto the streets of Juarez is all too real. El Pastor’s mission is
called Vision in Accion, and he takes care of the people no one else will.
A Super AR-15 assault weapon is involved in Callie and
B.J.’s kidnapping. The gun in Surrender is based on the Tracking Point
Precision-Fire gun. The weapon is able to turn a single gunshot into a
laser-guided missile. The part I found disturbing is the weapon’s ability to use
a smart phone to video tape the shot so that you can share with family and
friends. Karl uses this technology to terrorize Callie.
Risa Leigh writes her love stories set against a backdrop of adventure and
suspense. She grew up in wide-open spaces of west Texas then moved all the way
across the state to the Dallas-Ft. Worth metroplex. She has been a librarian in
community, school and college libraries and worked as a bookseller. Naturally
she likes to read.
ATF agent B.J. Carleton’s
first priority is stopping the flow of guns into Mexico until sassy Callie
Snowden finds herself in the sights of a ruthless gunrunner, a man B.J. suspects
killed her husband. After the tragedy Callie retreated home to her small Texas
town, thinking she’d found safety. Now secrets from the past plunge her into a
nightmare.
When she and B.J. are kidnapped by ruthless cartel henchmen
and taken into the Chihuahuan desert, B.J. must protect Callie from the killers
and harsh terrain. As they run for their lives, the past continues to play
itself out and catches them in its deadly spiral. And if B.J. gives in to his
overwhelming attraction for her, he may lose everything...for both of them.
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