The Big Bear

$14.95

by Ronald L. Ruiz

ISBN: 978-1-55885-393-5
Publication Date: March 31, 2003
Bind: Trade Paperback
Pages: 313

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Acclaimed Mexican-American attorney and author, Ronald L. Ruiz, returns with the publication of another fiery legal thriller. The Big Bear presents a compelling court case featuring a Mexican-American attorney and an Anglo physician.

“I didn’t kill her,” the accused says. Gabby Garcia has heard it all before. “Everything from outright lies to minimizations, omissions and simple denials.” García has all the cases he can handle, but a new case is about to grab his attention. In physician Dr. Alan Newsome, a man accused of killing his wife, García sees the ultimate challenge in his long struggle for recognition and worth. Gabby Garcia clawed his way out of farm work to become a lawyer for the poor and disenfranchised in San Jose, California, only to abandon them for the lure of bigger and better cases. Alienated and numb to the world around him, Garcia stumbles onto a life-altering murder case that demands that he find internal strength to prevail.

Ronald L. Ruiz, best-selling author and former defense attorney and prosecutor, writes from bare-knuckled courtroom experience and the teeth-grinding memory of growing up the son of Mexican immigrants in rural California. His characters’ agonizing relationships and search for self-discovery provide an engrossing illustration of ever-present issues of success and social class in the United States. Ruiz populates this tale of passion, crime and politics with genuine and vulnerable characters, each one struggling to solve his or her own mysteries.

Recovering the U.S. Hispanic Literary Heritage

University of Houston

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Houston, TX

77204-2004

Recovering the U.S. Hispanic Literary Project is a national project to locate, identify, preserve and make accessible the literary contributions of U.S. Hispanics from colonial times through 1960 in what today comprises the fifty states of the United States.

After college, RONALD L. RUIZ went to law school, “for all the wrong reasons,” as he now says. In 1975, after ten years of practicing criminal defense law, Ruiz returned to writing and began working on his critically acclaimed first novel, Happy Birthday Jesús, (Arte Público Press, 1994). His second novel, Giuseppe Rocco (Arte Público Press, 1998), is the recipient of the national literary prize, the 1998 Premio Aztlán. A graduate of the University of San Francisco Law School, Ruiz is a former prosecutor for the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office in Oakland, California. Ruiz currently practices criminal defense law in northern California.