Precinct Puerto Rico: Book 1

Rincón, Puerto Rico, 1987.
Even a tropical paradise may have its little murders.

In his years as sheriff of Angustias, a small town nestled in Puerto Rico’s mountainous heart, Luis Gonzalo has seen his share of violence. People kill for love and money in Angustias just as they do anywhere else. But it is only during a visit to family in the seaside town of Rincón that he encounters his greatest challenge.

It begins with a midnight call that brings Gonzalo to a beach where bodies are washing ashore, victims of a shipwreck, victims of the illegal traffic of humans from the Dominican Republic. When he discovers evidence that the shipwreck was no accident, that the ship’s captain was murdered, he is warned off the investigation. A young photographer brings him proof that Puerto Rican police were involved in the deaths of the undocumented immigrants, and when Gonzalo follows this lead, all hell breaks loose. It will take a shootout in Angustias, an attack on his family, and the murder of one of his deputies to get to the bottom of this mystery – a mystery no one else in Puerto Rican law enforcement dares to help him solve.

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PRECINCT PUERTO RICO: BOOK ONE

At the core of PRECINCT PUERTO RICO: BOOK ONE is a shipwreck. Dozens of undocumented immigrants from the Dominican Republic drown in a failed attempt to reach shore on Puerto Rico, a Caribbean island whose residents are all American citizens. The incident in the novel is a fictionalized depiction of a tragedy that occurs all too often in real life.

In January 2001, Yves Colon of The Miami Herald reported that "as many as 53 migrants from the Dominican Republic were missing and presumed drowned…after their boat capsized." Three survivors had been rescued, and they each claimed to have paid $4,000 to be ferried across the Mona Passage between the two islands.

In March of 2000, 10 bodies were recovered but as many as 30 others were lost when their boat was "dashed apart by the waves" (Manuel Ernesto Rivera, AP). Earlier that same year, 16 bodies were recovered by the U.S. Coast Guard and the Dominican navy after another sinking. In this case, the boat had nearly arrived at Puerto Rico when its engines died. The currents pushed the boat back towards the Dominican Republic. An unknown number of victims were missing.

The one constant in all these stories, and in many others like them each year, is the uncertainty of the numbers involved. No source knows for sure how many boats attempt the journey across rough seas each year or how many passengers they carry. Of those missing, no one knows how many eventually make it to shore safely and how many drown.

PRECINCT PUERTO RICO: BOOK ONE is not a forum to discuss the political side of the immigration issue. Instead, the book looks at the human side of the problem and hopes to strip away a little bit of the anonymity of the victims.