All that remains for Tres to do is exonerate his brother, find the real killer (whose clue-laden e-mails alternate with Tres's narrative, delivering Texas-sized creepiness), save the ranch, and with the help of Maia Lee, a beautiful lawyer from his past, untangle a skein of Doebler family murder, misery, and hurt. Witty, sharp as glass, and plotted as well as it's written, The Devil Went Down to Austin paints a high-tech Texas laced with treachery and tequila before a cranked-up Jimmy Buffett backdrop. Expect great things, because Riordan delivers. --Michael Hudson

Product Description
Rick Riordan, triple-crown winner of the Edgar, Anthony, and Shamus Awards, brings his fast-talking, hard-living, Texas-hip P.I. Tres Navarre to the heart of the Lone Star State—Austin—to unravel a case so dark, twisted, and deadly, it can only involve family....

Tres Navarre, the P.I. with a Ph.D. in literature, heads to Austin for a laid-back summer teaching gig. But he’s in store for a whole lot more. His big brother Garrett--computer whiz, Jimmy Buffett fanatic, and all-around eccentric—is hoping to retire a multimillionaire by the fall. He’s bet his career and the Navarre family ranch to do it.

Then Garrett’s oldest friend and business partner is murdered—and Garrett is the only suspect. As Tres delves into Garrett’s bizarre world to find the truth behind the murder, he comes face to face with the damaged relationships, violent lives, and billion-dollar schemes of a high-tech world gone haywire. Connecting them all is beautiful Lake Travis and the shocking secret that lies within its depths. Now, as Tres struggles with his own troubled family past and to clear his brother’s name, he finds himself stalked by a cold-blooded killer—one who could spell the death of both Navarres.

I read 'Devil Went Down...', the fourth Tres Navarre title, immediately after finishing the first one, 'Big Red Tequila.' It's clear that author Rick Riordan's style and plotting have improved over time. Not that they were ever bad to start with -- far from it. But though still packed with Riordan's trademark twists and turns, the story in 'Devil Went Down...' was easier for me to follow than the often convoluted plots of earlier titles. Part of the difference may be that there seemed to be fewer characters to keep straight in this story.

There's one element of this book I'm not so sure about. From time to time, Riordan interrupts the narrative to include anonymous email messages. I won't spoil anything by saying what relevance, if any, these have to the story. But for the first time in the series, the reader has information that's not available to our narrator. As I said, I'm still not sure what I think of that.

On the other hand, I want to thank Rick Riordan for not allowing this novel's scuba-diving scenes to become James Bond-movie-style underwater mega-battle parodies. That would have been a tough hurdle for me to overcome.

This story takes place almost entirely in Austin, not Tres' hometown of San Antonio. But the South Texas atmosphere is still strong, Tres is maturing as a person (in his world) and as a fully drawn character (in ours), the other characterizations are solid, and the story itself is powerful. Of the four Navarre titles so far, the third and fourth have been my favorites. Which suggests that even greater things are to come -- he wrote hopefully.


Should have 6 stars   June 14, 2001
 3 out of 3 found this review helpful

This is a very well-written novel set in Austin, TX, where I live. Admittedly I am a bit biased on that account. However, considering all of the fiction I have read, this novel clearly shows the author's hard work and editing through its consistently descriptive writing, lack of cliches and paragraphs to skim, good story line, interesting characters, and the general flow of the text. I loved it and I believe that Amazon.com should actively promote this writer and his work. Carol Cunningham, attorney on sabbatical and fledgling author