El Narco" draws the first definitive portrait of Mexico's drug cartels and how they have radically transformed in the last decade. This piercing book joins testimonies from inside the cartels with firsthand dispatches and unsparing analysis. The devastation may be south of the Rio Grande, but America is knee-deep in this conflict. 336 pp. 30,000 print.

Reviews

"Grillo's book is terrific--full of vivid front-line reporting; diverse interviews; a sense of history; a touch of social science; clarifying statistics; and realistic reviews of what might be done to improve things, none of it easy. It is essential reading.""--"Steve Coll, NewYorker.com "Graphic and fast-paced history""--Mother Jones """ ""El Narco" achieves something unattempted in the English-language reporting on the Mexican drug war: it lays out in clear terms the contours of a world that has existed for years and only grown more barbaric as it's graduated to "war" status. Since that world is right next door, it's high time that English-language readers are able to learn just what makes it tick.""--Bookforum" "The strength of "El Narco" lies in its shoe-leather reporting; Grillo interviews everyone from a former cartel assassin to DEA agents to grieving families, snitches, pot and poppy farmers, illegal immigrants and gangbangers. He's the sort of journalist who'll pop into a plas