Windows To The World

Howtown by Michael Nava
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Lawyer Henry Rios travels north to the area where he grew up to take a case as a favor to his estranged sister.  Henry had a very painful childhood as did his sister but they both had left their past behind in different ways. Rios refers to his hometown as How Town, a phrase taken from an E. E. Cummings poem called 'anyone lived in a pretty how town'.



"women and men (both little and small)
cared for anyone not at all
they sowed their isn't they reaped their same
sun moon stars and rain....'

Central valley

The case is a difficult one involving a pedophile who has purportedly committed murder. Under another circumstances he would have refused the brief but he does want to help his sister and their by her friend. It means meeting old friends whose reactions to him he is unsure of, but immediately he realizes that there is something very wrong in the city of Los Robles amidst the politicos, the movers and shakers as well as the police.



Henry believes the truth must come out one way or another and he has to step lively or he will be steam rolled into the ground.

Henry Rios is a complex character with many shadows in his life but at least during this book he tries to stay in the sun.