Hello, Cindy here. My thriller MULTO – meaning ghost in Tagalog – is about a Filipino American bounty hunter chasing an undocumented immigrant who can disappear like a ghost.
I’m Filipino American like my protagonist, Domingo the bounty hunter. That’s where the similarity ends. Domingo is a new kind of hero for a diverse audience. He’s tough in the mold of Robert De Niro’s bounty-hunter character in Midnight Run, but with the sense of humor of Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum (One for the Money). Looking for a fugitive requires a lot of waiting and stalking, so during downtime, Domingo writes a wiseass advice book for immigrants.
M is for Monica. She’s a biracial Filipina who travels to the U.S. and stays on illegally to look for her American father, an Air Force general who doesn’t know she exists. Unlike the criminal undocumented immigrants that Domingo usually hunts down, Monica is not a murderer or a drug dealer or a gun smuggler. Her biggest crime is to dream of being acknowledged by her father, who represents her American Dream. But the general wants her out of his country, and so he hires Domingo to take her to immigration authorities for deportation. To Monica’s credit, she evades Domingo not once but twice.
U is for Undocumented. This action-packed and humorous novel touches on immigration issues. There are about 10.5 million undocumented immigrants in this country today. MULTO is ultimately a meditation on what it means to desperately cling to the hope of belonging in America someday.
L is for Last. At the beginning of the novel, Domingo is looking for Monica for the third time. The general has died, and his ailing widow wants to make amends with Monica. Domingo vows to find her and to make this the last time. But he may be too late. His final search takes him through an unexpected journey of discovery not only about the elusive woman but about himself.
T is for Thrilling. In MULTO, the thrill lies not only in the search and the chase, but in the underlying conflict between a dogged bounty hunter and a desperate woman in hiding. Where is she? And when he fails to find her, the question becomes, is she alive?
O is for “One of a Kind.” In pop culture, the bounty hunter is typically a kickass, gun-toting white man. Domingo is one of a kind – a brown immigrant bounty hunter who critiques the country’s broken immigration system.
His latest job is to catch the one that got away…three times.
Filipino-American bounty hunter Domingo has made a career of catching criminal undocumented immigrants. He’s the best in the business—and it isn’t lost on him that he’s so good because of his similarities to his targets. Despite Domingo’s claims that he is unsympathetic to their plight, yet spends his spare moments on stakeouts and in between jobs writing a book of advice for aspiring immigrants. Brash, funny, and candid, he compiles the names of all the people he’s apprehended, documenting the hazards of his profession, and imparting advice to foreigners who dare to dream of life in America.
Domingo’s latest job is finding biracial Filipino woman Monica Reed—for the third time. Monica is the only fugitive who has ever escaped him, and the only one he’s ever released, against orders. As he embarks on a third and final hunt for her, Domingo uncovers a dangerous truth that Monica was determined to publicize—even though it put her life in danger. And as he chases her around the country, despite his agreement to arrest people like Monica, Domingo finds himself taking her side. Flushing out immigrants whose biggest crime was clinging to the American Dream pales in comparison to getting justice for a woman who he discovers was living in the shadows, but was only ever searching for the truth.
Full of action and humor, MULTO is also a meditation on what it means to be unwelcome and unwanted in a country you love and the sacrifices such love requires.
Thriller [Agora Books, On Sale: September 26, 2023, Paperback / e-Book, ISBN: 9781957957098 / ]
Cindy Fazzi is a Filipino American writer and former Associated Press reporter. She has worked as a journalist in the Philippines, Taiwan, and the United States. Her contemporary thriller, MULTO, will be published by Agora Books, an imprint of Polis Books, in July 2023. Her historical novel, MY MACARTHUR, was published by Sand Hill Review Press in 2018. Her articles have appeared in Electric Literature, Forbes, and Writer’s Digest.
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