LA CIUDAD JUAREZ, MEXICO: currently the mostdangerous city on the planet. Since theearly 1990's there have been 600 documented "femicides" and 3000missing women presumed dead. Escalatingturf wars between the city's two rival drug cartels have led to increasinglybrutal violence in the city since 2005. In the year before August 2009, Juarez'smurder rate was the highest reported in the world, exceeding the holders of thesecond and third highest rates by more than 25%. The rate of 130 murders per 100,000 inhabitantshas led business groups in Juarez to call for UNintervention. Journalist CharlesBowden, in an August 2008 GQ article, wrote that multiple factors, including drugviolence, government corruption and poverty have led to a dispirited anddisorderly atmosphere that now permeates the city. The violence has forced the residents of Ciudad Juarez to changetheir daily routine; many now stay home in the evening, and the fear ofkidnapping or random violence has curtailed public life.
La Ciudad Juarez is justacross the Rio Grande River from El Paso, Texas, USA.
JUAREZ, A Novel, by Scott Bonasso, is inspired by trueevents and people. It tells the story often-year-old, Marco Espinoza, a boy living a life of poverty in the dark heartof Juarez, tied to the deadly drug industry through his father's employment forthe all-powerful Leoncartel. When Marco's father is killed inwhat appears to be a turf war between Juarez's rival cartels, Marco's mother,Marcela, is forced to work as a drug smuggler for El Leon. Marcela soon finds herself on the wrong sideof the cartel's vicious general, El Mago, where death is just a misstep away.
John Teague lives in San Antonio,Texas, with his wife, Anastasia, although themarriage has disintegrated since the tragic death of their three-year-old son, Devon, two years earlier. Hooked to cocaine and at the brink of suicide, John leaves his wife andhouse and drives across Texason a self-destructive quest to experience "the world of theflesh." When a stash-house hevisits in El Paso is raided by the police, Johnflees across the border to Juarez.
John Teague and Marco Espinoza's paths will cross andinextricably unite in Juarez and together they will forge a bond strong enoughto give them the courage to stand up to the corrupt cartel-government complexthat has brought a city of 1.3 million people to its knees. Their new quest: to evade Juarez's policia-narconet and find another, better life backacross the border in the USA.
JUAREZ is a crime drama; an international thriller; a humanstory. Inspired by actuality, it shows avery human side to the violence in the titular city while giving the reader anauthentic glimpse into this brutal, anarchic culture that exists disturbinglyclose to home.
