El Narco : inside Mexico's criminal insurgency

 by Loan Grillo. Freelance war and crime reporter Grillo writes that he became fascinated with the trade routes of narcotics when he was a teenager in Brighton, England, in the 1980s. After drugs started flooding into the seaside town, many of Grillo's friends started using; some died, and some still are wasted, propping up the bars of Brighton. Grillo set out first to learn how drugs made their way from exotic places to Brighton and then to do something to stem the tide. The investigation chronicled here is the result of 10 years of reporting on the ground in Mexico, where Grillo interviewed drug lords, drug addicts, drug survivors, gang members, smugglers, and agents from the ATF, DEA, and FBI. The division of his book into three parts History. Anatomy. and Destiny effectively organizes the analysis of how Mexico came to control drug trafficking, how it spreads, and what can be done about it, while also allowing Grillo free rein in presenting his hard-won findings. This excellent work packs the punch of Roberto Saviano's Gomorrah (2007), an exploration of the Italian Mafia, which also displays the fruits of direct reporting bolstered by intensive interviewing. --Booklist (Check Catalog)