Winner of Best Adult Fiction Book at the 2024 New Zealand Booklovers Awards

A novel by Nick Davies

In New Zealand, also at Wardini Books and Schrödinger's Books.

The story

Out of work and out of luck, actor Lou Galloway swaps Los Angeles for Mexico and a bottle of cheap mezcal. A few drinks too many later, he's a guest at the lavish wedding of wanted crime lord Diego Flores, where everyone is sure he's El Flamingo, a rogue assassin nobody has ever seen.

Then he meets Maria-Carla, and falls for her on the spot. With no way back, Lou is pulled into a world of Latin American intrigue that runs from desert fiestas in Mexico to the jungle salsa bars of Colombia. To stay alive, he has to do the one thing he swore he'd never do again: act. And the longer he plays El Flamingo, the more it looks like the role he'd been waiting for all along.

A sunset noir about chasing the impossible dream.

What readers say

Desperado meets James Bond meets The Big Lebowski.
M.J. Pankey

One of the strongest, most perfectly plotted novels I have read in several years.
Joey Madia

There is nothing else like this book out there.
Sandysbookaday

Quite brilliant. So much fun.
Marcus Hobson

About the author

Nick Davies is an actor turned writer from Wellington, New Zealand, who has worked internationally in film, television and theatre. He wrote short plays and films in his early twenties, then at 27 left New Zealand for the Americas. Those years became The Lost Gringo Chronicles, his collection of travel stories from Colombia, Brazil and Mexico. He has also written as a freelance journalist for The Dominion Post and travel publications.

El Flamingo is his debut novel. When he isn't at home in New Zealand, he's usually somewhere in Latin America, with a coffee, a sunset and a story on the go.