Third and Indiana Book

Set in Philadelphia's badlands, where drug gangs rule the streets, this debut novel has the explosive authenticity, the narrative drive, and the tender passion to knock you out of your seat!

Fourteen-year-old Gabriel's father skipped two years ago. Now his mother, Ofelia, is searching for her runaway son, riding her bicycle at night through the city's darkest, most violent stretch. The pavement beneath her is mysteriously painted with chalk outlines of bodies. Each time a child is killed, another white outline appears.

While Ofelia tries to outrun a vision of her son's death, her son tries to outrun the neighborhood, taking cover with a drifter; but Gabriel is already trapped, at the mercy of Diablo, the ugliest of the dealers, a man who kills for fun.

Publishers Weekly

This hard-edged, stunning first novel is set on and around the corner of Third and Indiana in the ``Badlands'' of Philadelphia. Fourteen-year-old Gabriel Santoro has been assigned to this spot by a local drug king, Diablo, and it is here that the boy makes a small fortune by handing out crack to people in passing cars. Gabriel has run away from home, and his mother, Ofelia, aided by a sympathetic priest, is looking for him. What she doesn't know is that her son is staying with Eddie Passarelli, who needs 10 grand to pay back a mobster for the loss of a loaned truck; meanwhile, Diablo is demanding two grand from Gabriel to make up for an alleged shortage in his cash count. Money, with its awful power, is almost a separate character in this novel. Some, like Gabriel, become drug dealers to get more of it; others, like Eddie, are endangered because they don't have enough of it. Lopez (a columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer ) doesn't preach, however; with brutal honesty, he alternates scenes of despair with glimmerings of hope and, even when detailing matter-of-fact violence, he writes with compassion about those trapped in a world where men like Diablo make the rules and are the arbiters of life and death. He also employs a brilliant visual image: spray-painted silhouettes that appear on North Broad Street whenever a teenager dies in a gun-related incident. It's an image that is as haunting as this tough, compelling novel. 50,000 first printing; $50,000 ad/promo; author tour. (Sept.)