Albuquerque Mayor Tomas Zamara understands that politics is like playing football on a muddy field. If you don't get dirty, you're not giving your all. But dirty politics is not his style.
It's 2008 and the presidential campaign is all coming down to New Mexico. Albuquerque Mayor Tomas Zamara, charged with delivering five electoral votes for John McCain, understands that politics is like playing football on a muddy field. If you don't get dirty, you're not giving your all. But dirty politics is not his style.


The Democrats' Barack Obama is drawing adoring crowds with his uplifting speeches, and Zamara's GOP bosses are pressuring him to do "whatever it takes" to win.

Challenging him every step of the way is fierce, young Sierra León of the Democracy Project, who calls on him to listen to his better self and reject his party's unsavory practices.

But if only his life were as simple as politics. Mayor Zamara is also grappling with being a suspect in his wife's murder; fending off his father, who wants to rescue his failing business with city money; and satisfying his demanding new woman, the radiant and volatile Tory Singer, who may not be who she says she is.

John Byrne Barry is a writer, designer, actor, bike tour leader, and crossing guard.

He wrote his first book-length project - a 140-page treatise on dinosaurs - in fifth grade at Kilmer School in Chicago. One page for each dinosaur. Lots of white space. He's been writing ever since - magazine and newspaper articles, advice columns, political comedy and murder mystery plays. He's even written for seed catalogs.

His first novel - Bones in the Wash: Politics is Tough. Family is Tougher, set during the 2008 presidential campaign in New Mexico, won the 2015 Best Book Award from the Bay Area Independent Publishers Association (BAIPA).