The Devil's Mambo [Mass Market Paperback]

Jerry A. Rodriguez (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 24, 2007

Nicholas Esperanza couldn't believe his luck. A winning $30 million lotto ticket took him out of NYPD Homicide and bought him Sueno Latino, a popular salsa club on Manhattan's Upper West Side. Dancing, drinking, partying, women - every day was a good day. The nights with his girlfriend, Legs, are even hotter. But now, Legs needs Esperanza to do her a solid: find her missing 14-year-old niece, Alina. With that, Esperanza's luck is about to change. Before he knows it, Esperanza's plunged into a dangerous sexual underground of S&M clubs, fetishists, pornography, and murder. Anything can be bought and sold, especially innocence. The most beautiful faces mask the most vicious predators. As the quest gets more personal, and the lines between good and evil blur, Esperanza spirals into the darkest recesses of his soul, to places he never wanted to see. He's in so deep that turning back is not an option.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Ex-homicide detective and Navy SEAL Nick Esperanza dives deep into New York's sexual underworld in this graphic, gritty first novel. Esperanza has everything: he's a $30 million Lotto winner, retired at 40, madly in love with his gorgeous girlfriend, Legs, and singing the occasional song in his thriving salsa club. When Legs's niece disappears, he reluctantly agrees to take a break from the good life to scout around. Playwright and filmmaker Rodriguez gives his Puerto Rican Spenser a standard supporting cast-an FBI agent brother, a fellow former SEAL running club security-and starts out mostly painting by the numbers. Then the trail leads to kiddie porn ring the Candyland Club and its sadomasochistic enforcers, and Esperanza's taste for kinky sex meets its match in the vicious Mistress Devona Love, who reduces the once cocksure investigator to a quivering heap in the book's best and raunchiest scene. The squeamish may wince as Esperanza does his desperate and dark dance down the wild side.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

When NYPD homicide cop Nicholas Esperanza wins 30 million bucks in the lottery, he does what any right-thinking fella would do: chucks his job, buys a nightclub, and spends his days relaxing, and his nights . . . well, let's just say the man likes his fun. But when his girlfriend, Legs (really), asks him to find her missing niece, our hero soon finds that you can take the man out of the cop shop, but you can't take the cop out of the man. A very uneven mix of private-eye yarn and erotic thriller, the novel will please some readers while it turns off others. The language in the novel is frank and may strike some readers as over the top, but the story is well plotted and the characters, especially Esperanza, are well drawn. This may lack the depth one associates with top-level hard-boiled fiction, but it packs the punch and entertaining edge of the pulps. Just be sure to keep it away from cozy fans. David Pitt
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 292 pages
• Publisher: Kensington Trade Paper (April 24, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0758217102
• ISBN-13: 978-0758217103
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,214,995 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wow, August 25, 2007

By 

JEFF RIVERA "Author of FOREVER MY LADY on Ama... (Miami, Florida United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Devil's Mambo (Mass Market Paperback)

Demented, dark and gruesome. Those are 3 words I would use to descrbe Devil's Mambo by Jerry Rodriguez. It has to be one of the darkest novels I've read. It took me places where I only imagined in my darkest nightmares. It was like a guilty pleasure, the characters were so intrguing you had to turn the pages. You root for the main characters revenge as he's put through things no man should endure. Jerry's characters are rough and and unapologetic. If you're into noire I think you'll enjoy this book.

4.0 out of 5 stars Eerily A Good Read!, September 22, 2010

By 

Sheba "AVID READER!!!!" (LANCASTER, TX, United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Devil's Mambo (Kindle Edition)

I found this book to be a very good read. It went to a few dark places that most people abhor or don't care to admit to having an interest in. But don't let that deter you from reading it, because there is so much more to the story. The story moved along at a good pace and kept me interested all the way. There is action, murder, suspense, mystery, thrills and definitely CHILLS. There's also, guns, whips, chains, latex, vinyl and other S&M stuff. Esparanza, formerly an NYPD detective, is a different kind of guy, likeable most of the time and questionable and dark at others but I still found myself rooting for him. I am looking forward to reading more novels by Jerry A. Rodgriguez.

5.0 out of 5 stars A demented, erotic thrill that exposes the underbelly of society, April 8, 2008

By 

Jason (Funkytown) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Devil's Mambo (Mass Market Paperback)

The Devil's Mambo starts off with Nicholas Esperanza enjoying life. He's a former Navy Seal and NYPD homicide detective who hit a 30 Million lottery and provided an avenue for early retirement. He has the hottest nightclub in town, Sueno Latino, a gorgeous girlfriend, Legs, and a good group of longtime friends. In every way possible his life is fulfilled and satisfying, until one day Legs asks for a favor.

Legs asks Nick to see her abuela (grandmother) about Alina, Legs' buck-wild niece who has run away from home on multiple occasions. Abuela is worried and having visions about Alina hanging out with a bad element, a dangerous crowd. Because he loves Legs so much, and because it suits his background so well, Nick takes on the challenge of finding Alina and bringing her back home.

In no time at all, Nick is immersed in a world of sexual deviancy, where pain and pleasure is mixed, and for those seeking the extreme, violence and crime is added. He realizes that Alina has been hanging out with a tough crowd, from transvestites in underground sex clubs to pimps and prostitutes who have links to a world of degradation and sexual pleasure, and to Jason Ryback and his wife Mistress Devona Love.

Jason Ryback and Mistress Devona Love are the extreme of all extremes; they are pain artists and torture experts, and they are intricately involved in the seedy world with which Nick will soon be familiar. They use people to fulfill Love's extreme sadistic desires, and sometimes to do the bidding of a shady, part-time employer named Bishop who is involved in the sickest of the sick: kiddie porn. In their daily lives, the concepts of asphyxiation, electrical play, and murder are as normal as eating corn flakes for breakfast.

It's up to Nick to fight through the pimps, prostitutes, trannies, doms, subs, strippers, and murderers to find Alina within the New York underbelly saturated with sex, drugs, perversion, and crime.

Along the way he gains first-hand knowledge and experience of the insanely intense world of hardcore BDSM. He learns his limits of pain and pleasure, and the extent to which the two coexist. He learns that in order to survive in such a bizarre and deranged environment, he'll have to find his inner-sociopath and ignore his burgeoning sexual desires.

This is a hot page-turner that is so twisted and interesting that it simply can't be put down. It touches on the trashy nerve we all have within, the urge we have to peek at the magazines covered in plastic or the garbage tabloid. It's the desire for danger and the uknown that makes us attempt new experiences, and this book tugs at the roots beneath the tree of risk.