''Big Red Tequila'' (Bantam, 1997) is the first novel in

Rick Riordan Richard Russell Riordan Jr. ( ; born June 5, 1964) is an American author, best known for writing the ''Percy Jackson & the Olympians'' series. Riordan's books have been translated into forty-two languages and sold more than thirty million cop ...

's Tres Navarre series and Riordan's first published book. It is a fast-paced crime story about an unusually talented and flawed hero, Jackson "Tres" Navarre, a third-generation Texan, who has a PhD from Berkeley in medieval studies and English, works as an unlicensed private investigator, and is a

tai chi is a Chinese martial art. Initially developed for combat and self-defense, for most practitioners it has evolved into a sport and form of exercise. As an exercise, tai chi is performed as gentle, low-impact movement in which practitioners ...

master. This novel won the Anthony Award for best original paperback and the Shamus Award for best First Private Investigator novel in 1997.

Premise

After ten years in the

San Francisco Bay San Francisco Bay (Chochenyo language, Chochenyo: 'ommu) is a large tidal estuary in the United States, U.S. state of California, and gives its name to the San Francisco Bay Area. It is dominated by the cities of San Francisco, California, San ...

area, Tres Navarre returns home to

San Antonio San Antonio ( ; Spanish for " Saint Anthony") is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the most populous city in Greater San Antonio. San Antonio is the third-largest metropolitan area in Texas and the 24th-largest metropolitan area in the ...

Texas Texas ( , ; or ) is the most populous U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the we ...

, to investigate the unsolved murder of his father,

Bexar County Bexar County ( or ; ) is a county in the U.S. state of Texas. It is in South Texas and its county seat is San Antonio. As of the 2020 census, the population was 2,009,324, making it the state's fourth-most populous county. Bexar County ...

Sheriff A sheriff is a government official, with varying duties, existing in some countries with historical ties to England where the office originated. There is an analogous, although independently developed, office in Iceland, the , which is common ...

Jackson Navarre, and to rekindle a romance with his high school sweetheart, local art gallery owner Lillian Cambridge. The more Tres looks into the unsolved crime, the more trouble comes his way, and the more plunged into danger he gets.

References

1997 American novels Novels set in Texas Anthony Award–winning works Shamus Award–winning works Culture of San Antonio Novels by Rick Riordan San Antonio, Texas in fiction 1997 debut novels {{1990s-crime-novel-stub