• Fiction.

By Ana Castillo. Random House, $24.95.

Grade: C

Plot in a nutshell: Regina and her 15-year-old nephew, Gabo, have been waiting a week for Gabo's father, Rafa, to return from Mexico. Rafa, who is also Regina's brother, has crossed the desert many times and learned to dodge the Border Patrol, but this time Regina fears that he has fallen victim to a coyote. As Regina tells us, "coyotes and narcos" (body traffickers and drug traffickers) own the desert borderlands, and no one can sneak across anymore without paying someone.

Gabo's mother was murdered seven years earlier at the hands of a brutal, organ-harvesting coyote, and although Rafa keeps insisting on taking his son back to Mexico, Regina is determined to see her nephew finish high school. But when Rafa doesn't come home, Regina and Gabo embark on a dangerous search in which they find themselves embroiled with gang members, border police, powerful coyotes and a disgruntled priest.

Sample of prose: As Gabo sits at the front of a church waiting nervously for his turn to read scripture, we see the religious zeal that increasingly comes to define his life:

"It was then that it happened. I turned to face the altar, tan nervioso, as I said, and as I was looking high above, at the life- size crucifix that hangs there, the wisdom de Su Reverencia came to me: The One who is keeping you nailed to the Cross loves you and is breathing into you the strength to bear the unbearable martyrdom and the love to love divine Love in bitterness. That was when the grace of Our Lord was bestowed upon me. . . . At first, a single drop. Then a second and a third. Bright and red as the brightest, reddest rose in God's holy garden. Drops of blood slowly coming down the divine forehead of Jesus. . . . Then it vanished. And my body and soul were calm. Thank you, Diosito, I said."

Pros: Castillo's characters are unique and believable, and the novel tackles issues too seldom addressed in today's literature.

Cons: Castillo's enthusiasm for her subject matter frequently overshadows everything else, allowing the novel to become preachy, rather than achieving the literary subtlety necessary to make a truly lasting statement.

Final word: Although Castillo's characters are intriguing, it is unclear who her audience is: A general literary readership? U.S. politicians? Mexican-Americans? Non-Mexican Americans who know little of the dangers that line the U.S.-Mexico border? Parts of the novel read like a newspaper editorial, unfortunately detracting from the more far-reaching resonance of her characters' all-too-human experiences.