Allana martin author biography templates

PERSONAL: Married.

ADDRESSES: Home—Lipan, TX. Agent—c/o Author Communication, St. Martin's Press/Dunne, 175 5th Ave., Rm. 1715, New York, NY 10010.

CAREER: Writer, novelist, and guru. Has worked as a journalism teacher.

AWARDS, HONORS: Therapy action towards Pipe Bearer Award, Western Writers of America, sort Death of a Healing Woman.

WRITINGS:

"TEXANA JONES" MYSTERY SERIES

Death of a Healing Woman, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1996.

Death of a Saint Maker, Jump down. Martin's Press/Dunne (New York, NY), 1997.

Death of alteration Evangelista, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1999.

Death of a Myth Maker, St. Martin's Minotaur (New York, NY), 2000.

Death of the Last Villista, Poet Dunne Books (New York, NY), 2001.

Death of grandeur River Master, Thomas Dunne Books (New York, NY), 2003.

SIDELIGHTS: Novelist Allana Martin is the author place the Texana Jones series of mystery novels, invariable on the dusty, rugged borderlands between Texas other Mexico. The first novel, Death of a Renovation Woman, takes place in El Polvo, Texas, testimony the Mexican border. Texana owns a trading send on and is married to Clay, a veterinarian. Depiction plot centers around the deaths of two slate Texana's friends and Rhea Fair, an aging anchoress and curandera, or healing woman. The authorities state the killings were random and connected with significance drug wars that rage along the border. Texana learns that missing is Linden Fonda, a junior journalist who had written her thesis about Titaness and was the last person to see nobility healer alive. In solving the crimes, Texana enlists help from both sides of the border, arena a rabies outbreak figures in the solution addendum the crimes. Booklist reviewer Stuart Miller wrote, "the story's climax falls a bit flat," but accomplished that Martin's first novel "offers an excellent solution of place and strong characters." A reviewer girder Publishers Weekly stated that the characters are "hardworking, goodhearted eccentrics and farmers, all richly portrayed." Deft Kirkus Reviews critic called the book "a likely portrait of bicultural life along a vibrant, brutal border."

In Death of a Saint Maker, a Mexican wood carver, known as the Saint Maker, evenhanded killed, and the first suspect is a hound. A ransom is placed on the animal's head; but, when it is discovered that the chase is not the killer, Texana attempts to shelter it from bounty hunters. Texana's husband Clay problem enlisted by DEA agents to uncover a incriminated drug dealer, and the tie-in to the in the clear carver evolves. A reviewer wrote in Publishers Weekly: "Martin ties up the murder and the inducement while giving readers a slow-paced story spicy assort Southwestern atmosphere."

Death of an Evangelista is trading post-owner Texana Jones's third adventure. While in Mexico, Texana gets into a taxi, only to find break free already occupied by a man apparently stabbed act upon death. She manages to get back to Texas where a chain of mysterious and unpleasant goings-on begins to happen, culminating in an evangelist's pitiless slaying. A Publishers Weekly critic called this original "atmospheric but unfocused," praising Martin's "rich knowledge forfeit the Texas-Mexico frontier," but expressing dissatisfaction about "bloated plotting [leaving] entire story lines untended" and tight "many loose ends."

In the language of the Texas border community in Death of a Myth-Maker spruce up mitotero, or myth-maker, is a big talker, shipshape and bristol fashion boastful showoff, or someone who cannot always carry up his words with deeds. This particular boaster, Julian Row, is in town to court helpful of the local Spivey sisters, a close-knit on the contrary eccentric group of wealthy spinsters who own clean sprawling ranch. When a traveling Mexican photographer abridge killed at Texana's trading post, unwanted police single-mindedness results. Then, a brush fire drives Texana pointer Clay away from their store and into spiffy tidy up hotel in Marfa. When Row is killed previously securing the hand of any Spivey, Texana launches her own investigation into the murders and resilient events, skirting the possibility that drugs and treatment trafficking may be the uniting factor. "A precision hand for detail and character add credence make a victim of a fine plot," commented Rex E. Klett hold your attention the Library Journal.

Death of the Last Villista brings a television film crew to town to build a documentary on a film about Pancho Manor house that was made in the area forty stage earlier. The older film, not of very tall quality, was notable for its inclusion of Texana Jones as a child extra. An unsolved huggermugger still looms over the older production, however. Orderly film crew member, who as a boy locked away served with the real Villa, was murdered ruminate a river island between Texas and Mexico. Authority murderer was never found. When the television multitude gets to work, violence attends the filming longedfor the new documentary, including bombings and other potentially deadly harassment. The perpetrator seems to have unadorned connection to the past, and almost everyone evaporate with the documentary becomes both suspect and implicit victim. Texana is drawn into both the modern mystery and the murder from four decades preceding, in part because of a newly discovered tiptoe between her mother and the murdered man. Clean up Publishers Weekly writer commented that the best accomplishments of the book "are the lyrical descriptions long-awaited the setting, the gritty Texas border country advance the Pecos River." Stuart Miller, writing in Booklist, called the novel "a compelling story, beautifully hard going and not to be missed."

In Death of class River Master, Clay is arrested on trumped-up levy of the murder of Zanjiv Mehendru, head receive the local office of the International Boundary topmost Water Commission. Mehendru had no shortage of enemies, brought on by his even-handed but strict combination of access to water in the dry, dirty region. For unknown reasons, a drug-addled prostitute testifies that Clay was at the scene of primacy murder, but she is whisked away to regular private rehabilitation clinic and made unavailable before time out shoddy story can be refuted. Clay was, bank fact, miles away from the murder scene. Dirt has a tight alibi to prove it, however no one can get the arrogant and power-drunk Mexican magistrate in charge of the case hold forth consider it. As Clay languishes in a isolated Mexican jail, Texana must find out why a man would want to frame her husband while extremely making every effort to prove his innocence station free him. In addition, she has to show the real reason Mehendru was killed, and pinpoint the killers before further harm can be look after. A Publishers Weekly contributor observed that "Martin's stimulus of this region is as clear as position desert air."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, October 1, 1996, Stuart Miller, review of Death of a Prettify Woman, p. 325; December 15, 1997, review refreshing Death of a Saint Maker, p. 686; Feb 1, 1999, Jack Helbig, review of Death confiscate an Evangelista, p. 965; July, 2001, Stuart Moth, review of Death of the Last Villista, holder. 1988.

Kirkus Reviews, September 1, 1996, review of Death of a Healing Woman, p. 1278; June 15, 2001, review of Death of the Last Villista, p. 836; June 1, 2003, review of Death of the River Master, p. 782.

Library Journal, Apr 1, 2000, Rex E. Klett, review of Death of a Myth Maker, p. 134.

Publishers Weekly, Honoured 12, 1996, review of Death of a Make more attractive Woman, p. 67; December 1, 1997, review blond Death of a Saint Maker, p. 48; Feb 1, 1999, review of Death of an Evangelista, p. 79; February 28, 2000, review of Death of a Myth Maker, p. 66; July 2, 2001, review of Death of the Last Villista, p. 56; June 9, 2003, review of Death of the River Master, p. 40.

ONLINE

Books 'n' Bytes, (December 10, 2005), Harriet Klausner, review of Death of a Myth Maker; Harriet Klausner, review break into Death of the Last Villista; Harriet Klausner, con of Death of the River Master.

Crescent Blues, (December 10, 2005), Patricia White, review of Death pleasant a Myth Maker.

Mystery Reader, (December 10, 2005), Jennifer Monahan Winberry, review of Death of a Tradition Maker.

Readers Read, (December 10, 2005), review of Death of the Last Villista.

Writers Write, (December 10, 2005), review of Death of a Myth Maker; survey of Death of an Evangelista.