Lino Mendoza leaves behind a colorful past in Puerto Rico to become a Wall Street lawyer and then governor of the U.S. island territory that, for decades, has stagnated in economic inertia and political confusion. Against ruthless and cunning international business predators and politicians, he leads a grassroots movement in a crusade to build Puerto Rico City — a new city to eclipse all others as the place to be and be seen.
Straddling the 2008 world financial crisis, this international drama unfolds against the backdrop of geopolitics, world business and current events and then converges on a tiny hypnotic island that has been constantly in search of its destiny.
Born in Toledo, Ohio in 1961, David R. Martin is the second of four sons of Puerto Rican parents. Mr. Martin spent his early childhood and adolescence in Texas, Puerto Rico and Connecticut. He attended high school and played football in Fort Buchanan, Puerto Rico and at Choate Rosemary Hall in Wallingford, Connecticut. After winning a writing award and graduating from Amherst College, he studied law at the University of Puerto Rico and New York University. Since 1990, he has practiced corporate law in Atlanta, Georgia. Through this work of fiction, Mr. Martin proposes for the Island a radically different, challenging and successful future. For the distilled, non-fiction proposals look for "Puerto Rico: The Economic Rescue Manual" at