


Books in series

#1
Lay Your Sleeping Head
2016
A completely revised edition of the first Henry Rios mystery, The Little Death, Lay Your Sleeping Head introduces Michael Nava’s singular protagonist, gay, Latino criminal defense lawyer Henry Rios. Rios, beset by personal and professional problems, begins a passionate affair with the black sheep heir to a great California fortune who tells Rios an improbable tale of murder and sexual predation in his wealthy family. When the young man is found dead of an apparent drug overdose, Rios begins an investigation that ultimately reveals much more than that his lover’s death was murder.

#2
Carved in Bone
2019
Was Bill Ryan's death an accident? Henry Rios has his doubts.
The first new Henry Rios novel in 20 years from six-time Lambda Literary award winner Michael Nava is a brilliantly plotted mystery that weaves together the gripping story of two gay men against the backdrop of 1980s San Francisco as the tsunami of AIDS bears down upon the city.

#3
Lies with Man
2021
Los Angeles, 1986.
A group of right-wing Christians has put an initiative on the November ballot to allow health officials to force people with HIV into quarantine camps―and it looks like it’s going to pass. Rios, now living in LA, agrees to be counsel for a group of young activists who call themselves QUEER [Queers United to End Erasure and Repression]. QUEER claims to be committed to peaceful civil disobedience. But when one of its members is implicated in the bombing of an evangelical church that kills its pastor, who publicly supported the quarantine initiative, Rios finds himself with a client suddenly facing the death penalty.

#4
Howtown
1881
Winner of six Lambda Literary awards, the Henry Rios mystery series is iconic and Michael Nava has been hailed by the New York Times as "one of our best" crime writers. Upon its original publication, the Los Angeles Times said of Howtown and its author: "Nava's mysteries are faithful to the conventions of the genre, but they are set apart by their insight, compassion, and sense of social justice.... Howtown is Nava's bravest and most ambitious novel to date."
This 2019 edition from Persigo Press has been revised and an author's note added.
Howtown finds Rios back in his hometown of Los Robles, California, defending Paul Windsor, a boyhood acquaintance accusing of murdering a pedophile. Windsor is himself a pedophile, and the police believe the murder was the result of an extortion scheme gone wrong. It's up to Rios to prove otherwise, if he can. To do that, he has to confront the ghosts of his past that still linger in the sleepy river town. Simultaneously, the novel explores Rios' relationship with his HIV-positive lover, Josh Mandel.
This is a revised edition with an author's endnote

#5
The Hidden Law
1992
Winner of six Lambda Literary awards, the Henry Rios mystery series is iconic and Michael Nava has been hailed by The New York Times as “one of our best” writers. In The Hidden Law, Rios delves deeply into his Latino identity as he defends a young man charged with assassinating a prominent Los Angeles Latino politician. The San Francisco Chronicle hailed the novel and its author: “A beautifully conceived but gritty novel.... Nava writes the kind of small, clean, powerful novels that build in emotional power almost invisibly, leaving us breathless at the end.”

#6
The Death of Friends
1844
When a judge leading a double life is murdered, Henry Rios comes to the controversial defense of the prime suspect
Chris Chandler, a long-married California state superior court judge and family man, has been found dead in his chambers—beaten to death with his recent Judge of the Year award. When his young lover, Zack Bowen, is arrested, Henry Rios takes on Bowen’s defense. For Rios, who has kept Judge Chandler’s secret since law school, it means going up against a closed community—including Chandler’s angry wife and son—to defend a man he believes innocent. Then Bowen vanishes.
As Rios copes with tragedies both personal and communal, he finds himself front and center in a case that becomes a test of his own moral courage.

#7
The Burning Plain
1997
Attorney Henry Rios fights for his freedom and his life when a homophobic serial killer targets gay men in Los Angeles
Defense attorney Henry Rios knows how the system can be weighted against you . . . especially if you’re gay. His worst nightmare becomes a reality when a man he had been on a date with the night before is slain. Relentlessly pursued by a homophobic Los Angeles Police Department cop, Rios goes from prime suspect to target when more gay men are savagely murdered. The victims all suffer the same fate: They’re beaten to death, with a hate message carved into their bodies, and they’re dumped in an alley.
Rios must break through a conspiracy of silence that reaches to the highest levels of Los Angeles politics and Hollywood power. And the closer he gets to the truth, the closer he gets to becoming an enraged killer’s next victim.

#8
Rag and Bone
2001
In Michael Nava’s final Henry Rios mystery, the Latino lawyer faces his most daunting personal and professional challenges as he comes to terms with his past—and a cache of family secrets
Henry Rios was dead for fifty-seven seconds when he suffered a heart attack in the courtroom. While he recovers, his sister, Elena, stays with him at the hospital, and they begin to repair their strained relationship, finally airing their thoughts and regrets about their childhood in an abusive home. But Elena has an extra surprise for Rios: Thirty years ago, when she was in college, she had a baby and gave her up for adoption. The girl, Vicky, grew up in foster homes, but now seeks out Elena for help escaping an abusive husband.
Despite Elena and Rios’s efforts, Vicky returns to her husband—but not long after, he’s shot dead in a motel room and Vicky claims to have blown him away. Rios doesn’t believe her confession, though, and finds evidence that suggests she’s innocent. Rios’s search for the facts leads him into a thicket of secrets and lies. As he fights for a niece he never knew he had, he must also combat the ever-present shadow of his own mortality and the truth about his past. A possible judgeship and a new love give him hope for the future in this stellar conclusion to the acclaimed Henry Rios series, about love, loss, and the enduring power of family.
Author

Michael Nava
Author · 14 books
Michael Nava is the author of a groundbreaking series of crime novels featuring a gay, Latino criminal defense lawyer Henry Rios. Nava is a six-time recipient of the Lambda Literary Award in the mystery category, as well as the Bill Whitehead Lifetime Achievement Award for gay and lesbian literature.