Fiction. Everardo Torrez received the Grand Prize in the University of Alaska Fairbanks Press Fiction Contest in 1997 and an Honorable Mention in the Edward Moses Fiction Contest at the University of Southern California. Torrez has written and published several short stories that focus on the cultural polarization and synthesis that defines Mexican and U.S. relations. In this debut novel, Torrez draws the dark underbelly of drug running into the light, away from politics and media attention and into the complicated issues motivating the participants. Nando Flores and Xiomara struggle to transverse the sparsely inhabited desert all the while trying to evade the henchmen of two rival drug cartels. Braving rape, mental illness, drug addiction, starvation and the icy cut of the bullets flying at them, Torrez's characters show every will to survive.