A lot of Americans vanish into Bolivia. Being a professional magician, Jonathan was just especially good at it. He had come, convinced that its fantastic mountain deserts and mythic Indian cultures infused the place with actual magic - the real thing - in contrast to North America, which had been emptied of it.

Worried about his mental state, his straitlaced sister has arrived from the States to find him. She enlists the help of a stranded American named Roger who speaks Spanish and the Aymara Indian dialect, and they set out together.
​
Roger learns that her brother used to perform in public, that he subsists on fruit juice and dope, and that the locals have taken to calling him Flame. Unlike her brother, Roger is desperate to leave. He has done 23 countries in 10 years and is feeling fragile: "a candle burning low ... Any unnecessary excitement just might blow it out." Unfortunately, Flame has given up street performance to be the private entertainment for an immensely wealthy criminal oligarch with his own all too exciting talents for making things disappear.

In praise of Stone Cowboy.

Every once in a while, when you least expect it, you stumble across a novel that reminds you of fiction’s capacity to delight and amaze.” 
​— The Washington Post

Jacobs elegantly blends the stories of Latin American revolutionaries, drug csars, thugs, expatriates, and lost souls. His eerie and engrossing tale recalls the magic of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, with a cynical American edge of its own. An enchanting debut.” 
​— ​​Penthouse

An impressive debut from a writer with a generous imagination and a daring, if deeply weird, sense of character and fate.” 
— Kirkus Reviews

Jacobs makes the familiar unique with a magic realism that owes more to Carlos Castañeda than Garcia Marquez.” 
— Salon.com

Essential reading for anyone attempting to understand the human side of our drug polices... a multilayered tale of spiritual renewal.”   
— Library Journal

Jacobs breathes new life into the old form with lucid, sinewy prose and an intimate knowledge of the Bolivian people and landscape.”
— Publishers Weekly

Stone Cowboy is the ugliest, most depressing book you will ever love, a travel journal from hell. Part crime thriller, part travel guide, part sociological treatise, Stone Cowboy makes for one ugly, entertaining and profound read.”  
— San Antonio Express News