Desperado is the self-told tale of Gus Corral, a down-on-his-luck resident of Denver, Colorado. Gus’ wife has left him and he currently works, and lives, in a thrift store called Sylvia’s Superb Shoppe. Adding insult to the injury, Corral’s ex-wife is Sylvia.

First-person point of view can be as invigorating as a dip in a Rocky Mountain stream. Read enough bloated thrillers with unnecessarily intricate narratives alternating between multiple characters and plots, and sitting down with a flawed-but-honest guy like Gus is a welcome change indeed. Here, he describes his neighborhood in gentrifying north Denver; how his old friend from high school, Artie Baca, offers him a thousand dollars to help make a blackmail payment; and the questions that two cops have for him after Baca turns up dead with a check in his pocket made out to—uh oh—Gus Corral.

So Corral embarks on a desperate quest to clear his name, and also find out the truth about his old friend’s murder. It’s a pretty tall order for a guy who’s never had the benefit of much luck in his life. And right on cue, his investigation lands him in hot water with a Mexican gang operating in the Denver area. Not even his protective older sister, Corrine, can bail Gus out of this situation.

But first-person narrators are also notoriously unreliable. In fact, Gus has a secret that, frankly, left this reader feeling cheated. If you are able to guess the truth, then you’re more clever than me. Gus, I hardly knew you at all.