Hell or High Water: A Novel [Hardcover]

Joy Castro (Author)

Book Description

Release date: July 17, 2012

Nola Céspedes, an ambitious young reporter at the Times-Picayune, finally catches a break: an assignment to write her first full-length feature. While investigating her story, she also becomes fixated on the search for a missing tourist in the French Quarter. As Nola’s work leads her into a violent criminal underworld, she’s forced to face disturbing truths from her own past and is confronted with the question: In the aftermath of devastation, who is responsible for rebuilding what's been broken?

Vividly rendered in razor-sharp prose, this haunting thriller is a riveting journey of trust betrayed—and the courageous struggle to rebuild. Fast-paced, atmospheric, and with a knockout twist, Hell or High Water features an unforgettable heroine as fascinating and multilayered as New Orleans itself.

 

Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books (July 17, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1250004578
• ISBN-13: 978-1250004574
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (66 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #854,528 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Castro’s first mystery is fierce and intense, with both harrowing depictions of New Orleans after Katrina and psychological mayhem for its troubled heroine, who crawls under your skin and lingers there long after you’ve finished reading." --Kirkus Reviews

“Exquisite New Orleans background, intriguing newsroom politics and atmosphere, a flawed but plucky heroine, and skillfully paced suspense makes this a ‘stay up way past your bedtime’ read.” –Booklist (starred)

"Readers who enjoy psychological thrillers will find this a fascinating look into an intriguing city. Nola is a feisty character..." --Library Journal

“A terrific mystery, but Hell or High Water is more than just a mystery; it’s a heartfelt examination of a second America—poor but undaunted—that was swept under the rug but refuses to stay there . . . I can’t wait to see what Joy Castro does next.” —Dennis Lehane, New York Times bestselling author of Mystic River

"Hell or High Water is a tightly written thriller. Nola's first-person perspective and her witty, often cutting dialogue will make the reader believe in the character and really care for her and what happens to her. . . . Like the city for which she was named, Nola is damaged yet unbeaten. . . . an exciting, incisive novel." --El Paso Times

"Hell or High Water is so thick and rich with authentic New Orleans details that you’ll be wiping sweat off your brow and smelling the crawfish étouffée. Joy Castro has crafted a complex, conflicted, and hauntingly real heroine with Nola Céspedes. Shackled to her past and to New Orleans, Castro’s Nola reminded me of Pat Conroy’s Tom Wingo and the Outer Banks in Prince of Tides." --Alex Kava, New York Times bestselling author of The Maggie O’Dell series, Whitewash and One False Move

“In the tradition of P.D. James, Ruth Rendell and Lucha Corpi, Joy Castro shows how mystery can be much more than the unraveling of crimes concealed. An irresistible and compelling novel.” —Lorraine M. López, author of Homicide Survivors Picnic and Other Stories

About the Author

JOY CASTRO teaches literature, creative writing, and Latino studies at the University of Nebraska- Lincoln. Her 2005 memoir, The Truth Book, was elected an ABA Book Sense Notable Book.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books (July 17, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1250004578
• ISBN-13: 978-1250004574
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (66 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #854,528 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars No spoilers July 21, 2012

By James B. Robinson

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

I'm not much for writing reviews of fiction; I really prefer to know as little as possible about a book or a movie in advance so I rely on my friends to recommend things. So, I'll be extremely general here in my enthusiasms. I prefer to like protagonists and I loved Nola. I prefer not to see blatant errors of fact and I saw none. I prefer enough complexity, but not too much and characters to caricature. Done and done. Having read this, I'll probably read everything Castro writes and be mildly annoyed that she is not writing faster (along with Hiaasaen, Childs, Banks, Palahniuk, Crais, Gaiman, Harkaway, etc.)

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Refreshingly Different Main Character; 3 and 3/4 stars; June 5, 2012

By Smokey VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

Twenty-seven year old Times-Picayune entertainment reporter, Nola Céspedes, wants to write real news articles, not announcements of club meetings. Bylines on feature stories will get Nola where she wants to be: New York. In the Big Apple, she'll write for The New York Times.

Nola certainly has the talent to achieve her dreams. If it weren't for her loud mouth and her uncooperative attitude, she might get there more quickly. Both of these qualities almost blow her chance to prove herself when the paper's editor gives her the assignment of writing an article on the post-Katrina sex registry. Nola barely manages to control her trash talk and accepts the assignment. It's a scary one because she'll be interviewing sex offenders, some of whom will have gone off the grid. But Nola wonders if the story might be connected to the murders of two young women and the recent disappearance of third.

In "Hell or High Water", author Joy Castro has created a lively, interesting character in Nola, who dresses sexy, can drink and one-night-stand her way through life with the best of her fictional, male counterparts, and doesn't always think things through before she acts. She's also good to her mother.

Castro provides a vivid picture of New Orleans after Katrina, the way the small Latino population (Nola's mother is from Cuba) is viewed, and the gap between the haves and have-nots. A lot of information about the status and treatment of sex offenders is included, as well as a look at how convicted sex offenders live after being released from prison.

The solution to the recent murders of young women seems to happen almost by accident, but the surprising ending, and the insights Nola gains about herself and her past are very well done....

Three and a three-fourth stars. Read more ›

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A post-Katrina thriller May 31, 2012

By Jaylia3 TOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

Nola Céspedes wants a real story to work on, not the society fluff that her editor at the New Orleans Times-Picayunens keeps giving her. Problem is she sometimes can't rein her temper in. Even when handed a great story, a feature about sex offenders now off the grid because of all the dislocations after Hurricane Katrina, Nola initially back talks and tells her boss it's not real news. She changes her mind and throughout the rest of the book she is putting together her first serious piece of journalism--interviewing offenders, victims, and professionals to create a wide-ranging article she hopes will be her ticket out. Nola wants a better beat, preferably with a newspaper like the New York Times.

In spite of her occasional temper, Nola is a warm and very appealing first person narrator with a unique perspective on the city she both loves and hates. Nola's mother escaped Cuba and followed a man from Miami to New Orleans, only to have him leave when she got pregnant. New Orleans doesn't have much of a Cuban American community and being poor Nola grew up in its projects so she started life on the fringes of society. With her job at the paper Nola can now afford to live in a nicer part of the city, but she often can't relate to the lives of her wealthy girlfriends and, ironically considering the story she is writing, she engages in some very risky sexual activity. Though she's a straight talker, Nola still has secrets.

Lots of information about New Orleans and Sex Crimes is woven almost (but not quite) seamlessly into the narrative, and the lively colors, flavors and sounds of New Orleans are so vividly described the city practically vibrates to life on the page. The story is fascinating and suspenseful, with a twist at the end I didn't see coming.... A couldn't put it down book. Read more ›

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Suspenseful, moving, scary and hopeful. August 29, 2012

By OolooKitty

Format:Hardcover

In Post-Katrina New Orleans, Nola - named after the city -- writes for the Times-Picayune and dreams of writing for the New York Times. To Nola, the daughter of a Cuban refugee, the city and its paper are second-rate, and life can only begin when she leaves both to find something new and worthwhile. But when she's taken off her usual puff pieces and assigned a story about sex offenders, everything changes.

An amazing read. Nola is a fascinating character; complex, tough, smart, always compelling. Her wariness and anger are her driving forces, and through the course of the book, as she writes her story, she's also unexpectedly rewriting her own life and her own fate.

A story that manages to be truthful and dark but also surprisingly hopeful and moving.

A lot of books vanish from my mind the second I close the covers. This one won't.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A novel with a little susto... August 25, 2012

By John B. Goode TOP 500 REVIEWER

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

This book is billed as a thriller. It starts off as a young woman is abducted from a restaurant and it follows a young Cuban American reporter as she writes a story on sex offenders but it's much more than that. For 338 pages, I lived the life of a Cubanista living in New Orleans, and I lived every aspect of her life, from as a cub reporter to a hedonistic young Latina to a genteel 20 something hanging out with her gal pals. I faced her demons, her past, her frustrations, her future.

The writing is very good. This is what a good book is supposed to do, it is supposed to move you to another place. You learned what it was like growing up in the 9th Ward, you learned more than you ever wanted to know about sex offenders as she researched her story.

As a thriller I'd only give this book 3.5 stars, but as vicarious look into a life totally unlike mine, I give it 10 stars.