The Vagabond Virgins: A Hickey Family Mystery

Ken Kuhlken
Poisoned Pen Press (2008)
ISBN 9781590584613
Reviewed by Tara Hammack (age 16) for Reader Views (10/07)


“The Vagabond Virgins” is about two women--Lourdes Garcia trying to find her sister Lupe Garcia. The Garcia sisters live in Mexico. Well, Lourdes need to find Lupe because she is going around pretending to be a virgin angel and telling children to tell people to vote against the political party that is currently in control of the Mexican government. “She had counseled the children to warn the campesinos that all who voted for the PRI risked linking their eternal destinies to the fate of their wicked governors. Then she recited Psalm 52.”

Lourdes was afraid her sister would be killed by the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI).  She needs a detective or a private investigator to help her. She was told about this one guy, Alvaro Hickey, a law student working with his father as a private investigator until he becomes a lawyer. He wouldn’t be scared to bend the rules. Alvaro lives in southern California. Lupe was driven away from the family by her father at age eighteen because she was dating a guy her father disapproved of; at the time Lourdes was several years younger. So now Alvaro and Lourdes are trying to find Lupe and save her. The book is just one long hunt. They have to run from the PRI because Lourdes was one of the people the PRI suspected for killing her father.  When her father was killed, Lourdes took bricks of gold that was worth around one million dollars. Well, on the journey Alvaro thought Lourdes was crazy and she was the one going around pretending to be a virgin angel, until they heard that the PRI had Lupe, which brings me to my favorite part--when Lourdes dresses up as her sister pretending to be a virgin angel so that the PRI would let Lupe go thinking they had the wrong women.

This is a well-written story that overcomes conflict as well as brutality and corruption of border areas in Mexico.  “The Vagabond Virgins” is insightful and sensitive and will keep you turning the pages.

Make comment on weblog