Normally on Sundays we do beginnings, taking a look at the start of a Peter Abrahams novel – including those I write under the Spencer Quinn moniker™. (That TM is just a little joke, moniker being such a strange word I thought I’d own it.) But today is Cinco de Mayo, celebrating the Mexican victory over the Napoleon III at the first Battle of Pueblo in 1862. The French? What were they doing there? Plus the second Battle of P didn’t go so well. Mexican history exams can’t be easy. Anyway, in the Chet and Bernie series there are a number of excursions into Mexico, none ending well. Here, from To Fetch A Thief (available in all formats):

We followed the truck – a sharp-edged shadow – across the plain, followed close enough so the dust Jocko raised coated our windshield and got in my nose. “Might even be in Mexico already.” Uh-oh. Mexico. We’d worked down there before, the Salazar kidnapping and another case I couldn’t remember, except for part of a pork taco I’d scarfed up behind a cantina. My guys, not all but some, are different in Mexico – real tough customers, red-eyed dudes, lean and mean. Got into some scraps down in Mexico, and so did Bernie. The Mexican vet had to stitch me up; she stitched up Bernie, too. She was nice, kind of fell for Bernie, which led to complications on account of she forgot to mention her husband. But he turned out to be a real bad shot, so it ended up okay.