In the first book of the acclaimed Henry Rios series, a lawyer doggedly pursues a murder investigation into the lion’s den of San Francisco’s moneyed elite Henry Rios meets Hugh Paris when Paris is arrested for drug possession and being high on PCP. A burnt-out public defender battling alcoholism, Rios has reached a crossroads in his life. While interviewing Paris in jail, Rios goes through the motions, but notices that Paris is far more polished and well-off than the usual drug suspects. Paris is mysteriously bailed out—but a few weeks later, he turns up on Rios’s doorstep. Skittish and paranoid, he admits to using heroin and says he’s afraid that his wealthy grandfather wants to murder him. Rios tries to help Paris get clean, but when Paris is found dead of an apparent heroin overdose, Rios is the only one who considers foul play. Determined to find Paris’s killer, Rios knocks on San Francisco’s most gilded doors, where he discovers a family tainted by jealousy, greed, and hate. They’ve been warped by a fortune someone’s willing to kill—and kill again—to possess. At once an atmospheric noir mystery and a scathing indictment of a legal system caught in the maws of escalating corruption, The Little Death chronicles one man’s struggle to achieve true justice for all.

In his latest case, Henry Rios may have something few defense attorneys ever experience: a truly innocent client It’s a cause Henry Rios can’t resist: defending a young gay man on trial for killing the coworker who threatened to out him. Jim Pears is charged with first-degree murder; Pears says he’s innocent but the evidence is damning. Pears was found covered in the victim’s blood and with the murder weapon in his hand. But nothing about the People v. Jim Pears is what it seems. Rios is asked to join the case because he knows first-hand the pressures and threats that come with being gay in 1980s California. In the midst of one of the most complex trials of his career, Rios meets and falls in love with Josh Mandel, the prosecutor’s star witness. For this defense attorney, fighting for justice has never been more personal. And the stakes are no less than life and death.

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

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.”

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.

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.

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.