'War' is no exaggeration in discussing the bloodshed that has terrorized Mexico in the past decades. As rival cartels battle for control of a billion-dollar drug trade, the body count- 23,000 dead in five years - and sheer horror beggar the imagination of journalistic witnesses. Cartel gunmen have shot up schools and rehabilitation centers, and murdered the entire families of those who defy them. Reformers and law enforcement officials have been gunned down within hours of taking office. Headless corpses are dumped on streets to intimidate rivals, and severed heads are rolled onto dancefloors as messages to would-be opponents. And the war is creeping northward.
El Narco is the story of the ultraviolent criminal organizations that have turned huge areas of Mexico into a combat zone. It is a piercing portrait of a drug trade that turns ordinary men into mass murderers, as well as a diagnosis of what drives the cartels and what gives them such power. Veteran Mexico correspondent Ioan Grillo traces the gangs from their origins as smugglers to their present status as criminal empires. The narco cartels are a threat to the Mexican government, and their violence has now reached as far as North Carolina.
El Narco is required reading for anyone concerned about one of the most important news stories of the decade.
Grillo's clear-eyed, sobering account has authority and a flair for colourful anecdotes, making for disturbing but riveting reading (Metro)
A superb report form the front lines of narco-violence (Independent)
[A] shining example of dogged, impassioned and courageous reporting ... compelling ... his pace is furious, like driving at top speed along a wild mountain track in a pickup and there is no doubting his expertise, his compassion or his grit (Daily Express)
It is hard enough to report the facts of Mexico's crazy death spiral of drug violence. Ioan Grillo goes much, much deeper. He explains why El Narco threatens the soul of this beautiful country. He tells us how we got here (William Booth, bureau chief for Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean Washington Post)
A fascinating and terrifying account (Sydney Morning Herald)
Heartbreaking ... El Narco is a fine work of journalism (Irish Times)
Remarkable (Houston Chronicle)
Puts a human face on the bloodshed (Boston Globe)
First-hand research over ten years, in which the author sometimes put his life at risk, and a tight focus on Mexico alone, make for an account which is vivid, disturbing, and sometimes brutal (Irish Examiner)
In these vivid and engrossing books, Ioan Grillo proves himself a master of reportage, exploring territory few journalists have tread before him, and exposing the homicidal and hypocritical nature of America's battlefields (Irish Examiner)
