RICOS ON THE RIVER:
the tales of Beth Garcia
by Danielle Gallo
t’s a rare thing to hear one’s recorded
voice, and most people have the
same reaction: “Do I really sound
like that? That doesn’t sound like me at
all.” I get the same feeling when I read
articles or watch documentaries about
the Big Bend. There’s a strange distor-
tion that happens when I see the home I
love through someone else’s eyes, and it’s
seldom pleasant to me. The New York
Times or Anthony Bourdain just never
get it right; there’s an interjection of the
writer or the filmmaker that covers over
the truth of the place, twists it, uses it for
its own purpose. I usually come away
from those encounters feeling wronged
somehow, as though the Big Bend has
been sadly misrepresented, almost slan-
dered. That’s probably a deeply unfair
assessment on my part; after all, how do
you capture the enormity of this place in
1,500 words, or an hour-long episode?
How do you explain it properly to some-
one who’s never been here? And what
makes me think I’ve got it right, myself,
even after nearly two decades?
Thankfully, Elizabeth Garcia has an
amazing ability to present the Big Bend
in its vastness without the filters of the
outside world. A true insider for more
than three decades, she knows all the
nooks and crannies, canyons, arroyos
and mountains; but also the people.
Garcia’s Deputy Ricos series, now
boasting seven novels, is set in the wilds
of south Brewster County, where the
flora and fauna mingle with the dead-
liest of animals, man. Garcia’s character,
Margarita Ricos, is a twenty-something
sheriff’s deputy with a queasy stomach
but a swift, steady hand and an indefati-
gable sense of right and wrong. Smart,
brave and undeniably human, Garcia
has given her protagonist a host of obsta-
cles to navigate, both internally and
externally: a harsh, unforgiving land-
scape that Ricos loves with a passion but
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which doesn’t love her back; widowhood
at a young age; the viciousness of a tiny,
isolated community with nothing better
to do than gossip; loneliness, heartbreak,
family secrets, struggles with substance
abuse; and, of course, the crimes that
find their way to the borderlands Ricos
struggles to protect.
Garcia seems to delight in sending
her character on roller coaster rides. One
moment, everything seems to be going
Deputy Ricos’s way. In the next, Garcia
sends a hailstorm of tragedy on the
young woman’s head, leaving her
breathless and bereft. These are the
moments when the character truly
shines, as she struggles against her own
weaknesses and the vagaries of fate and
circumstance to find her feet and her
moral compass.
There’s nothing particularly special
about Ricos. She’s smart, but not a
genius. She’s a good shot and a compe-
tent policewoman, but no superhero.
She vomits at the sight of corpses, knows
almost no martial arts and sometimes
her common sense takes leave of her
entirely. If it were otherwise, she would
hardly be a character worth following
through her adventures. The interesting
thing about her, what makes her worth
reading about, is that the reader can pic-
ture doing the exact same thing under
the circumstances.
Knowing all the places and characters
in Garcia’s novels could have been a
mixed blessing for me. There’s that same
risk of corruption of a beloved thing, the
same dread that the place and the feel-
ings I know so intimately will be distort-
ed on the page. But Garcia handles the
beloved setting most deftly, and truth-
fully. She obviously loves her scenery as
much as her Ricos does, and treats it as
a living character, sometimes benign,
sometimes sinister, always present and
enormous. Similarly, Garcia shows the
Fourth Quarter 2019
Big Bend communities for what they
are, with all their wrinkles. Casual sex-
ism, domestic violence, poverty, hateful
gossip, small-town politics and prejudice
are represented here, right next to the
incredible strength, support, freedom
and eccentricities of the Big Bend.
Garcia refrains from too much com-
mentary on the pros and cons of living
in a tiny, isolated community. She
prefers instead to just show what it’s like,
by setting obstacles in the paths of her
people and letting them overcome them
in their own ways. Some are more grace-
ful than others, but even her most inci-
dental characters tend to have more than
one dimension.
It’s easy to get caught up in the famil-
iar landscapes and people of Brewster
County, and forget that these are mys-
tery novels. I’m reminded of what a film
critic once said about Robert Altman’s
Gosford Park, that is was less of a ‘who-
dunnit’ and more of an ‘it was done.’
Garcia’s mysteries are not of the Agatha
Christie type, with a com-
plex laying of clues and a
grand reveal at the end that
neatly ties up all the loose
ends. Like real-life crime,
Ricos’s cases are simpler,
more straightforward, often
more brutal and sometimes
lacking a happy ending. Her
criminals, like her cops, are
more ambiguous characters,
and while there are truly bad
guys to contend with, there
are also sad people making
poor decisions. In a sense,
the cases take a back seat to
the people who are involved
in them, and overall it makes
for a richer reader experi-
ence.
These mystery novels are
enjoyable reads because of
the richness of the setting
and the treatment of the
characters. They lack the
ponderous density of heavy
literature, even while providing a good
depth of emotion for the reader. They
can be read in a few sittings and are
devoid of gimmicks, offering an honest
face to the reader, much like the little
world in which they take place.
Elizabeth Garcia’s Deputy Ricos nov-
els are available from local Big Bend
book retailers and libraries, as well as
Amazon.com. In addition to the seven
Ricos novels, she has also written a num-
ber of other novels, available locally and
online. More information about her
books can be found on her website,
www.elizabethagarciaauthor.com.