Book Night with Stephen Baker to Discuss Crime Thriller 'Donkey Show' 

Just in time for your beach-reading list, the OPC is pleased to host Stephen Baker on June 9 to discuss his new novel, Donkey Show, a crime thriller centered on a journalist in Mexico.

Registrants will receive a Zoom link to join about an hour before the program on June 9.

The publisher, Atmosphere Press in Austin, TX, summaries the plot this way:

“A news photographer limps back across the Mexican border. He’s bloodied, his cameras smashed. And he carries a menacing message from a notorious drug lord to one of his colleagues. 'Tell Tom Harley he’s dead meat.'

"This death threat transforms a half-hearted reporter into an unlikely hero and kicks off a rollicking cross-border drama. Roaming from a love nest in El Paso’s shadeless barrio to a dusty carwash across the river in Juarez, Harley starts to untangle a story in which he’s a leading actor. But can he tell the truth once he finds it?

"In Donkey Show, Baker weaves a tale of deception, dueling ambitions, and international intrigue—most of it taking place within a 10-minute bike ride of the newsroom. Nearly everyone he encounters, it seems, shapes their stories to fit their dreams. But they must survive the madness for those dreams to come true.”

Baker has worked as a journalist and writer in many cities, including Paris, Mexico City, Caracas, Quito, Madrid, New York, and El Paso. His non-fiction books, including The Numerati and Final Jeopardy: Man vs. Machine and the Quest to Know Everything, explore the effects of technology on society.

Baker and colleagues from BusinessWeek won the OPC’s Morton Frank Award in 1992 for a story telegraphing Mexico’s role in North American manufacturing in the coming decade.

OPC Executive Director Patricia Kranz will moderate the discussion.

You can buy the book here.