The Hot Country

It's 1914 and war correspondent Christopher ("Kit") Marlowe Cobb has found his way to Vera Cruz, Mexico just as Woodrow Wilson has launched an invasion of sorts as retaliation for Mexican President Huerta taking some American soldiers prisoner. Although Wilson goes no further than trying to clean up Vera Cruz, the Mexicans, already embroiled in a civil war, are definitely pissed at the Americans and Germany sees an opportunity to start a conflict between Mexico and the U.S. and thus keep America from interfering in their European plans.
Cobb enlists the help of a young local pickpocket, Diego, to keep an eye on a German munitions ship in the harbor and thus is able to identify Germany's emissary, Mensinger, and even intercept enough information to let him surmise their plans. He decides to follow Mensinger who is on his way to meet with Pancho Villa. Along the way, Villa's men rob the train Kit is on and he falls in with the bandits after he discovers that an old pal, a mercenary named Tallahassee Slim, is leading the raiding party and they are on their way back to Villa. Kit gets involved in a battle between Villa's men and another rebel group and kills a man to save Slim's life. When he arrives at Villa's camp, he meets and fights with Mensinger. He also reunites with a woman he met in Vera Cruz, ostensibly a laundress, who Kit thinks is also a sniper, and with whom he has nevertheless fallen in love. When all is said and done, Kit writes his story and heads home for Chicago, but the feds put a blanket over the information and it is never published. Instead, Kit is recruited to act as an agent of the U.S. government and take a counter-offer to Villa.
This is apparently the first adventure/ spy novel that Pulitzer Prize winner Robert Olen Butler has written, although he is a prolific author of short stories, novels and non-fiction. It is also the first in a series featuring Kit Cobb, journalist turned spy. Butler does a wonderful job of capturing the atmosphere of Vera Cruz and supplying historic details that will engage fans of historical novels. Cobb is sort of a "man's man" with the accompanying attitudes towards women. It was definitely an engaging read and I went on to read the next one in the series, The Star of Istanbul. There is a great review of Hot Country by The Guardian.