Rate this book

El Sicario: The Autobiography Of A Mexican Assassin (2011)

by Molly Molloy(Favorite Author)

3.62 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

1568586582 (ISBN13: 9781568586588)

languge

English

genre

Memoir & Autobiography

publisher

Nation Books

review 1: This is the only book of its kind. For a cartel assassin to not only escape from his former occupation alive, then willingly share in plain language how it gutted him in every way possible, this is a rare thing. Long after getting out of the business, he decided to marry a girl he'd met in the south of Mexico, where he'd been working an honest job. To do this, he had to submit his real name to the local authorities, along with his address. The cartel hitmen were stalking him around town within three days. The sicario opens up and talks freely about the disregard for life, the spiritual bankruptcy, the delicate dance you have to do just to stay alive as a member of the cartel. The corruption in Mexico's government is covered, and it's so much deeper than most of us in the U... moreSA can fathom. In truth, the Mexican government is very close to being overtaken by narco-traffickers. There's just so many ways to die there: mess up a hit? Dead. Look at a boss's wife the wrong way? Dead. Average guy argues with a narco over a parking spot at a grocery store? Dead. Boss makes a mistake, tells you to kill the wrong person? The boss is always right, so you die. The cartel has a tight net of informants, from 12 year olds on Juarez corners, to cabinet members who report to the President. There's nowhere to hide, no one to trust. The only option is to conform to the will of the capos. Or die. Or maybe you just die by slow asphyxiation, or being slowly boiled alive, because some coked-up, paranoid narco gets it in his head that you're an informant or a journalist. Or because it's a Thursday. It made me extremely grateful for the law enforcement in the US, because it keeps evil in check, for the most part. There's corruption, for sure. The sicario experienced US Customs agents firsthand that were taking 50k to let a Chevy Suburban loaded to the gills with heroin pass right through the border with no inspection. Comprehensive and sad, but also a great chronicle of a man whose spirit was contorted and withered by evil, but came back and was redeemed.
review 2: The whole book is a monologue of one man's involvement as an assassin for a cartel operating out of Juarez; it is every bit as disturbing and realistic as you might (not even be able to) imagine.His is a story of some redemption, telling his tale on the run with his family constantly hiding from the blowback of his history; it is compelling because it is such a dire story.But, aside from the introduction and a few asides by el sicario, the whole hows, what and whys are largely absent from this text, it is really a much more street-level insight into the violence of drug cartels.One thing is clear, the drug war is corrupt and corrupting to all who intersect it, from the civilians who occupy the spaces drugs flow through on up to the governments that purport to be stopping it, there is just too much lucre for the madness to stop. Narco-terrorism is going to be to 2020 what the jihadis were to 2001 for the United States and Mexico; organized crime is flush with cash, infiltrated into so many civil institutions, technologically saavy, well-armed (thanks DEA!) and growing in numbers. The ten-fold increase in border town deaths since 2002, is not to be ignored, it is reflective of the chaos and crises incumbent in cartels jockeying for position. These "awkward teenage years" which have the cartels navigating growth spurts, will precipitate changes likely to increase the scope of the cartels (albeit fewer of them) and the depth of the various vices in which they engage.This is no joke... less

Download links for: El Sicario: The Autobiography of a Mexican Assassin

Advertising