Fifty Grand opens with a young, pretty Havana detective pushing a naked American man through a hole in the ice over a Wyoming lake. Detective Mercado of the Havana Police has tricked her way to Colorado via Mexico in search of the man who killed her father there in a hit and run. Along the way she meets Francisco, a young Nicaraguan who becomes her friend and protector of sorts. Posing as a Mexican migrant worker, Mercado, along with Francisco travel to Fairview, an Aspen-like place where Hollywood's super wealthy have their houses cleaned and their drugs ferried by immigrants who live in a state of quasi-slavery, beholden entirely to their handlers and the vicious town sheriff. One the one hand a suspenseful whodunnit, on the other a sharp critique of American immigrant policy and racism, with a bit of Scientology satire for fun, this was a great listen. The parts of the novel set in Cuba have a great you-are-there feel, and Christensen's reading was excellent.
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