Alex Gilly - Death Rattle

Dark and Stormy Book Club

ALEX GILLY is a writer and translator and who was born in New York City and has lived in Australia, Canada, France, California, and the UK. One of his translations, Thierry Cruvellier's THE MASTER OF CONFESSIONS, was longlisted for the 2015 PEN Translation Prize. Alex holds an MA in Translation and Interpreting Studies and a BA in Linguistics and Spanish and Latin American Studies, both from the University of New South Wales. He lives in Sydney with his wife and children.
Death Rattle - When Carmen Vega's boyfriend tries to kill her, she hands over all her savings to a smuggler and sets out from Tijuana in a small, leaky boat. Within sight of the California coast, the boat starts to sink, and its passengers have to be rescued by marine interdiction agents.
Soon, Carmen turns up dead in a privately-operated migrant detention center. Neither Nick Finn, the agent who saved Carmen from drowning, nor his wife, migrants-rights lawyer Mona Jimenez, are satisfied with the prison's account of what happened to Carmen.
Trouble is, the company that runs the prison is on the verge of signing a billion-dollar procurement contract with Homeland Security. And there are people in this world for whom a billion dollars is worth a whole lot more than one human life. Or even three.