The Ballad of Gato Guerrero, Part One

I've read the first half of Manuel Ramos's "The Ballad of Gato Guerrero." Marvelous stuff. Ramos is, I think, the most poetic of the crime writers I've read on a line by line basis. Raymond Chandler came up with some great lines, but not even line impressed me. This is my third Ramos novel, and so far, every line impresses.

Also, he writes short novels which I think is key in a crime novel -- of course a procedural may need to take out space to explain or describe procedures and a historical may need to do the same to get across the historical nuances of an age, but if there is no reason for a book to be long, then it should be short. This may sound like the simplest advice in the world, but it really isn't. Publishers have word count targets that writers are asked or required to hit. Mine is 65k. Not sure why. Anyway, Ramos gives you a story where every line, every word, is integral. Cool.