The main reason Tekún Umán is the top suspect is revenge for stealing his woman. Chip was Romilia’s lover. It is a well known fact from their previous interactions that Tekún is in love with Romilia. Chip wanted more from their relationship, but all Romilia wanted was a sex and friendship. Despite the Special Agent in Charge adamantly ordering her off the case, Romilia sets out to find Chip’s killer.

While the FBI is convinced that Tekún is the murder, Romilia isn’t. She suspects the killer has something to do with one of Chip’s cases. Her reasoning…. “cabron” was misspelled on Chip’s chest. The right spelling is “cabrón” something Tekún, of Guatemalan descent, would have known and not gotten wrong. Now Romilia has to find the real killers and prove Tekún innocent.

At this point the Special Agent in Charge starts going to Romilia for daily updates on the status of Chip’s murder investigation. What kind of boss just lets her agents determine what cases they work on in spite of orders to the contrary?

On the track for the real killer Romilia is kidnapped by Tekún so that he can protect her. (Tekún is not lacking in machismo.) During their time together in his Mexico compound, Romilia realizes that she too is in love with Tekún. This is the point at which the story and my willing suspension of disbelief fell apart completely.

First there the issue that the reader is supposed to believe a FBI agent is in love with a drug lord. Second there is the fact that apparently in one of the previous two books Romilia witnessed Tekún torturing someone. How does witnessing his cruelty help the reader believe she loves him? Third while she’s in his compound Romilia barely thinks about her son who’s in the care of Romilia’s mother. Her supposed devotion to her son disappears half way through the book. Reading about a FBI agent trying to prove innocence for the vicious drug lord is a bit hard to swallow.

In the pick-up / put-down test A Venom Beneath the Skin failed miserably. I started this book two months ago. Finally after it sat there on the coffee table nagging me for two months, I picked it up in order to get it over with and write the review. Pass on this hard to believe story.

--Terry Lawrence