The Last Hanging of Angel Martinez

In Taos County, New Mexico, probation officer Nina Montgomery thinks she knows all about Angel Martinez, a ""frequent flyer"" in the judicial system for increasingly sadistic treatment of his ex-partner, Liza Monaghan. When Liza is found dead on her kitchen floor, everyone suspects Angel - Nina most of all.

When Angel's aunt Loretta, Nina's neighbor and friend, asks her to look into Liza's murder, Nina reaches out to friend and sheriff's deputy Larry Baca and becomes embroiled in the case. As Nina delves into Angel's and Liza's lives, she is surprised to learn that Angel is a santero artist on the rise. A talented but struggling ceramic artist herself, Nina's worlds collide when a Hollywood celebrity wants her art just as the entanglements of Angel's family history begin to suggest the source of Liza's death. Amid the cultural and natural beauty of the Northern Rio Grande Valley, Nina finds herself steeped in the drama of a family gone terribly and violently wrong.