Danny Thomas Ruiz

The Blue Mexican: a Novel Danny Thomas Ruiz

In the novel The Blue Mexican, the Hispanic son of a career military man slowly transforms into adulthood as he fuels a three-decade long search for meaning in an ever-changing universe traveling from Italy to Ohio to Texas to California beginning in the 1960s.

The boy grows up fearing girls and fighting, but his episodic adventures lead him through a potpourri of colorful characters as he develops crushes on girls, joins the Cub Scouts, and pilfers from his employer. But his young existence is not without hurdles-when he enters junior high in Ohio, he confronts racism for the first time. Conflicted by generational, ethnic, and personal values during the Summer of Love in San Francisco and his subsequent law enforcement career, his experiences lead him to explore the hypocrisy and treachery of the system he has sworn to protect. As he questions his quest for truth and enlightenment in a world of victims and suspects, an anonymous murder breathes life and meaning into insignificant members of society, welfare, and the politics surrounding illegal immigration.

The Blue Mexican is a poignant and humorous glimpse into one man's soul and small town America during a turbulent, yet influential period in history.