The House of Wolfe — James Carlos Blake

The award-winning author's “hard-edged, fast-moving thriller” about love, crime, family, and loyalty set around the borderlands of Texas and Mexico (Booklist, starred review).
 
On a rainy winter night in Mexico City, a ten-member wedding party is kidnapped in front of the groom's family mansion. The perpetrator is a small-time gangster named El Galán, who wants nothing more than to make his crew part of a major cartel. He hopes that this crime will be his big break. Setting the wedding party's ransom at five million US dollars, he demands to be paid in cash within twenty-four hours.
 
The only captive not related to either the bride or the groom is the young Jessica Juliet Wolfe, a close friend of the bride. Jessie also hails from a family of notorious outlaws that has branches on both sides of the border, and when the Wolfes learn of Jessie's abduction, El Galán suddenly finds himself in over his head.
 
“This fast-paced, well-plotted thriller” from the Los Angeles Times Book Prize�"winning author of In the Rogue Blood “reads like a mix of Cormac McCarthy and Elmore Leonard” (Library Journal).
 
“[The House of Wolfe] keeps the reader engaged as the action rushes toward a surprising and fully satisfying conclusion” -- Publishers Weekly, starred review
 
“A pungent and exhilarating read. ” -- Financial Times