Customer Reviews

Playing a Spanish Number

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I read this book twice before I understood its true meaning: Life is short and Life is shorter when you live along the Texas-Mexico border. What an opalescent jewel this book turned out to be! I am still haunted by many of the local scenes and, frankly, feel like I've been hungover since I finished it. This guy has written about the Border like no other writer! I would recommend this book to anyone looking for a spark in Life, for college professors seeking insight from their students, for women who believe men will be different in the New Millennium. I gave my copy to my mother-in-law and she won't put it down! That's high praise....

If you read this book while listening to anything by Jimi Hendrix you will be propelled into a state of mind not unlike the best Life has to offer. I bought tis book at the behest of a friend and it was all it was promised to be. Whoever reads anything but greatness in this book has to be an envious writer whose work can't keep him busy. I say buy this book and return to the Days of Yesteryear, to a time when an evening at a cantina meant bullets flying in from all directions and husbands storming in to haul their errant wives home. I was on the tough Mexican border for two days while reaidng this book. Buy it.

The world is full of stories that go nowhere. This one takes readers on a ride and then some. It is a modern-day adventure any man would love to see land at his feet. Characters Patrick Alcatraz, Ben Barcelo and Ray Palafox are The Three Amigos with Cojones. This book is going places. Buy it, says this satisfied customer!

A man works his fingers to the bone and what does he get? Hoyt Axton said, "Bony fingers." This book is about the other side of man, the playful side. Playing A Spanish Number reminded me of a bullfight where all the bulls and all the bullfighters get killed before the afternoon corrida ends. It is a wild ride aboard a Mexican bus without brakes and a busfull of passengers who could care less. I bought this book and thoroughly enjoyed it. I recommend it highly. It is a page-turner extraordinaire!

I am one of those western dudes who believes he walked these hallowed southwestern lands a hundred years ago. I have dreams of riding with the Mexican bandit Pancho Villa, of drinking with him and the Adelitas, of battling the ragged federales as we made our way to Torreon. PLAYING A SPANISH NUMBER puts me back in the fray. I read this book and instantly found myself again on the Texas-Mexico border, again wanting to shed my coat and tie for the dusty Charrowear of Villa's Division Del Norte. Mr. Paz-Martinez has painted a Diego Rivera mural without Diego Rivera. I can't wait for his next book...

Patrick Alcatraz is a Mexican-American Sal Paradise who's gone off the road in a Texas border town.

He celebrates life, and he celebrates death. He's not one to draw sharp, or false, distinctions.

He takes lots of showers and he has lots of sex. His friends have just as much sex but it's not clear whether they shower as often, although one has turned his spare bedroom into a swimming pool.

The characters are as quirky and well-drawn as any from Elmore Leonard or Carl Hiaasen, but this is humor with a damn serious edge.

This book isn't all sex and violence. It also has a bullfight, which probably qualifies as both, at least the way Paz-Martinez tells it.It has lots of cheap hotel rooms, cheap beer and at least two Chevrolet El Caminos in crucial roles.

And it has important lessons about the things in life that really matter, like what's in your chili. Or in the hearts and minds of your so-called friends.

As I said, Alcatraz is not one to make sharp, or false, distinctions.