“Mark Coggins writes tight prose with a clean, unadorned style; he is a Hammett for the turn of the 21st century."
—Loren D. Estleman, author of Gas City

5.5 x 8.5/280 pages
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The Big Wake-Up summary

The odyssey of Eva Perón — the Argentine first lady made famous in the play and the movie Evita — was as remarkable in death as it was in life. A few years after she succumbed to cervical cancer, her specially preserved body was taken by the military dictatorship that succeeded her deposed husband Juan. Hidden for sixteen years in Italy in a crypt under a false name, she was eventually exhumed and returned to Buenos Aires to be buried in an underground tomb said to be secure enough to withstand a nuclear attack.

Or was she?

When San Francisco private eye August Riordan engages in a flirtation with a beautiful university student from Buenos Aires, he witnesses her death in a tragic shooting and is drawn into mad hunt for Evita’s remains. He needs all of his wits, his network of friends and associates, and an unexpected legacy from the dead father he has never known to help him survive the deadly intrigue between powerful Argentine movers and shakers, ex-military men, and a mysterious woman named Isis who is expert in ancient techniques of mummification.

The fifth novel in the August Riordan series, The Big Wake-Up plunges everyman PI Riordan and his sidekick Chris Duckworth into their most terrifying and anguishing case ever.

Praise for Mark Coggins' Prior Work

“Gritty…seamy…very, very funny. [Coggins] has given the form fresh life.”
—National Public Radio

“[D]ry ice sarcasm … and plenty of nasty chuckles in route.”
—Wall Street Journal

“Coggins recreates the private eye novel from scratch, breathing new life into it, standing every cliche of the genre on its ear. In turn fall-down funny, then dark and brooding ... a hell of a read”
—Joe Gores, author of Spade & Archer

Mark Coggins is the award-winning author of The Immortal Game and Runoff, and two previous novels featuring August Riordan. The San Francisco Chronicle has labeled his work, "smart, stylish, sexy" and Riordan "enjoyably jaded ... delicious." He lives in the Bay Area with his wife Linda and their cat Taki.