The Cactus Garden (Pocket Books, 1995)

"From the streets of L.A. to the back roads of Mexico, Robert Ward takes you by the collar and pulls you into the undercover world of high-level drug trafficking and investigation. Whether you are with the cartel bosses or inside the DEA, it's not always easy to tell the good guys from the bad guys. But in Ward's hands, you're a pro." -Michael Connelly

"Robert Ward delivers the goods in a speed-of-light novel rife with twists and turns, double-crosses and jeopardy, and heart-stopping suspense. Ward has created a zonky amalgam of paranoid danger and Carl Hiaasen humor that kept me turning the pages until sunrise! I loved it!" -Robert Crais

"The Cactus Garden is a righteous grabber...Read it and feel your blood pressure accelerate." -James Elroy

"The action is fast, furious and violent, the double-crosses and surprises keep coming." -Publishers Weekly

"A page-turner that delivers expert narrative and...memorable characters...The constant changes of scene, multiple narrow escapes and continual sharp banter among the characters help give the novel its wired, hip quality." -Los Angeles Times

In the old Hollywood, Jack and Charlotte Rae would have been Butch and Sundance, Bonnie and Clyde. But in the smog-drenched splendor of an L.A. wed to violence and the next illicit high, he is sworn to betray her. Far beyond the gaudy sunsets and tinsel-trash glitter, it is going to take more than his tough cop act to survive.

Daredevil DEA agent Jack Walker cruised down Hollywood Boulevard into the best unscheduled party of his career: a car-jacking featuring a .38 semiautomatic and his own movieland heroics. In any other city, the pretty woman he saved would be a star. Here, she was Charlotte Rae, a former B-movie bombshell waving a lottery ticket straight from hell -- a chance to get inside her husband's drug-smuggling empire.

Charlotte Rae and Buddy Wingate were one of California's self-made platinum couples: the high-rolling discount furniture king and his bottle-blond trophy. It was Jack's job to penetrate Buddy's drug operation -- and his marriage -- and suddenly Jack's doing a better job than he ever dreamed. Charlotte Rae is more than beautiful, and her brutal Mad Hatter husband is more than dangerous. She has a razor-sharp wit and an unexpected tenderness, and the heat in her eyes could light up the San Fernando Valley. Jack knows he has to tough it out like the cactus that Buddy so admires -- to wait of rain, to grow more spines. The breaking point will come when he heads south of the border, to Mexico.

The DEA is tired of building a dam of pickup sticks against a tide of drugs, and Jack is the key to a massive, risky bust. He's trapped in a manana land where a warehouse full of Colombian smack is the god, and Buddy is only a high-paid minion. As costumed devils parade beneath the chants of an evil priest, the Day of the Dead's rituals give way to a chamber of horrors for the living. To emerge alive from this unearthly garden of evil, Jack Walker must play the only card he has left: the ace beneath his rebellious outsider's heart.

A former writer for Hill Street Blues and Miami Vice, Robert Ward combines his formidable gift for dialogue and up-to-the-minute style with a rare access to DEA stakeouts, information, and confidential files, The Cactus Garden is a stunningly realistic novel peeled whole from the darker side of life in a tarnished Golden State.