El Sicario: Confessions of a Cartel Hit Man - Couverture souple

'I'm going to tell you about 20 years of my life dedicated to serving the cartel.
Serving them with these hands.
Torturing people.
And killing.'

Welcome to Cuidad Juarez, Mexico, the most dangerous city on Earth. This is the killing ground of the unnamed assassin, El Sicario. He has executed hundreds, is an expert in torture, spent years working for the state police, and received training from the FBI. He now lives as a fugitive in the US, with a $250,000 price tag on his head.

In sober, grim and graphic detail, he offers a series of confessions. Along the way he explains why he first became involved with the cartels and how they operate; outlines the most effective way to torture your victim; and describes the corrosive experience of looking into someone's eyes as you strangle them to death.

El Sicario also offers the unvarnished truth about the Mexican narco war that saw 2,750 murders in Juarez in 2009 alone, and over 3,000 again last year. Prefaced by the award-winning journalist and translator who met with him face to face, this is a deeply chilling and important book, revealing the brutality of the drugs underworld as you've never seen it before.

"'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)