MYSTERY AUTHOR | CIA VETERAN
Carmen Amato
I learned a few things about danger, deception and resilience during a 30-year career with the CIA. As an author, those lessons play out on the page, especially in the Detective Emilia Cruz mystery series set in Acapulco.
Join me for high-stakes crime fiction fueled by authentic tradecraft and tomorrow's headlines.
"A must-read for lovers of smart, character-driven crime fiction with a global edge." - Reader's House
LATEST RELEASE
DRAGON CARTEL
Acapulco police detective Emilia Cruz is already stretched to the max hunting cartel assassin El Barracuda when she agrees to take on the case of a missing Customs inspector.
At the same time, the interrogation of a mysterious Chinese national turns a local crime into an international puzzle.
A missing inspector. A cartel assassin. And a conspiracy that links Mexico and the United States to China.
DRAGON CARTEL is the 10th mystery in the award-winning Detective Emilia Cruz series. Available at your favorite online book store.
SIGNATURE SERIES
Meet Detective Emilia Cruz, the first female police detective in Acapulco.
Think Narcos meets Hawaii 5-0, as she navgates cartels, corruption and social inequality while hunting for Mexico's missing.
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DETECTIVE EMILIA CRUZ SERIES
Emilia Cruz is the first female police detective in Acapulco, fighting drug cartels, official corruption and social inequality amid the hunt for Mexico's missing.
2019, 2020 Outstanding Series Award, CrimeMasters of America
2019 Silver Falchion Award, Killer Nashville
GALLIANO CLUB TRILOGY
Lido, NY. 1926. At the height of Prohibition, an Italian immigrant and a trigger-happy Chicago bootlegger battle for control of the Galliano Club, where trouble is always on tap.
Based on tales told by my late grandfather, a Deputy Sheriff of Oneida County, NY in the 1920's.
2023 Silver Falchion Award, Killer Nashville
STANDALONE THRILLERS
Contemporary thrillers featuring complex plots, unforgettable characters and layers of risk, power, and deception.
Longlist, 2020 Millennium Book Award
Latest Posts
Finding the Missing in Mexico: New Effort or Whitewash?
In HAT DANCE, the latest Emilia Cruz novel due out later this summer, Acapulco detective Emilia Cruz is on the hunt of a missing local girl. The plot line is straight from the headlines coming out of Mexico. These headlines have reported—but struggled to actually...
Book Review: The Forgotten Affairs of Youth
The Forgotten Affairs of Youth is the eighth novel in the charming Isabel Dalhousie series by the prolific Alexander McCall Smith. Better known for the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series set in Botswana, the Isabel Dalhousie series is set in Edinburgh and has a...
Book Review: Blood of the Wicked by Leighton Gage
BLOOD OF THE WICKED is the first book in the Chief Inspector Mario Silva series by Leighton Gage. I’d never heard of the series before stumbling upon a reference to it in a Goodreads group. I was trying to see if I was the only one writing a mystery series set in the...
Book Review: The Hangman’s Daughter by Oliver Pötzsch
THE HANGMAN’s DAUGHTER by Oliver Pötzsch is a medieval murder mystery set in Germany. It is post-plague 1659, a few years after the end of the Thirty Years War, and children are being murdered in the small village of Schongau. It's the first in a series by the author,...
A Lesson from The Great Gatsby
I never gave much thought to how families talk. How different conversations might be from house to house until we had this little episode in ours. The argument grew heated. I wanted no part of it. Theories were picked apart. Voices were raised. Sneers were more than...
Book Review: The Golden Egg by Donna Leon
If ever there was a mystery author who I consider a role model, Donna Leon is it. Her Commisario Guido Brunetti series set in Venice has all the elements of a great mystery series: a perfect cast of characters starring Brunetti himself--the thinking man’s detective...