Crime, corruption, and colonialism–as well as compassion, survival, and dark humor–are woven into The Puerto Rico Trilogy, which consists of three separate character-driven novels that focus on the Caribbean island and its complex political and social relationship with the U.S.

The Odyssey of Pablo Camino, the first book, was inspired by a real-life incident when a stateside doctor, sent to the island for research, claimed in a letter that he purposely killed eight of his patients because of his disgust with the natives. In the novel, the doctor’s fictional son, a well-known, but troubled Puerto Rican artist, goes on a search for the truth of his father’s possibly murderous past.