El Sicario: Confessions of a Cartel Hit Man. by Molly Molloy, Charles Bowden - Softcover

Molly Molloy

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0434021458 ISBN 13: 9780434021451

Publisher: William Heinemann, 2011

Synopsis

'If Juarez is a city of God, it's because the devil is scared to come here'. A Juarez hit man (Sicario) speaks: he has killed hundreds of people, is an expert in torture and kidnapping, and for many years was a commander of the state police, receiving training from the FBI. There is a contract on his life of $250,000, and he lives as a fugitive. This is the unvarnished truth about the war on drugs - the murders, the corruption, the warring cartels, the complicity of the American and Mexican governments, by a man who has seen it and shared in the violence. Through El Sicario's words we see, for the very first time, the life of a cartel hitman in sober yet graphic detail; the distribution of power in this mindblowingly corrupt country; and, the contrition of a man who became so disturbed by his day job that he would wake from nightmares throttling his own wife. Framed by two pieces by award-winning journalist Charles Bowden that set the scene for the reader, this deeply chilling and important book shows us the Mexican drugs war as we've never seen it before.

About this title

About the Author

Molly Molloy, who translated El Sicario, is a research librarian at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, New Mexico. She is an experienced translator and specialist in Latin American Studies and edits the FRONTERA-LIST, an online chronicle of the violence in Mexico and other border issues. Award-winning journalist Charles Bowden is the critically acclaimed author of numerous books, including Down by the River, Some of the Dead Are Still Breathing and Murder City. He writes for Harper's, GQ, National Geographic and others. He lives in Las Cruces, New Mexico.

Review

"'Deeply disturbing'" * Scotsman * "'A glimpse into the brutal world of Mexican drug wars and a man tasked with pulling the trigger and torturing rivals. It's bloody, scary and disturbing.'" * Time Out * "'There could be no better or more vivid description of what it takes to kill to order...Award-winning journalist Charles Bowden and Molly Molloy have collaborated in a chilling descriptive of the darker side of life in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico ****'" * Irish News * "The Savagery in Mexico is our glimpse of the coming wars in this 21st century of globalised capitalism. So far, we Cassandras who endeavour to report it do so from the outside. Now, the master of border noir, Charles Bowden, and the chronicler of carnage from bloody day to bloody day, Molly Molloy, penetrate its dark heart. The story of El Sicario is at once that of the killers and torturers who propel this nightmare, and a yearning for redemption from its opaque depths that resonate in all of us. Terrifying, but not to know this is ignorance." * Ed Vulliamy, author of Amexica *

Edition details

• Publisher: William Heinemann
• Publication date: 2011
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0434021458
• ISBN 13: 9780434021451
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224