El Sicario: The Autobiography of a Mexican Assassin

by Molly Molloy (Editor), Charles Bowden (Editor)

Overview

In this unprecedented and chilling monologue, a repentant Mexican hitman tells the unvarnished truth about the war on drugs on the American. El Sicario is the hidden face of America's war on drugs. He is a contract killer who functioned as a commandante in the Chihuahuan State police, who was trained in the US by the FBI, and who for twenty years kidnapped, tortured and murdered people for the drug industry at the behest of Mexican drug cartels. He is a hit man who came off the killing fields alive. He left the business and turned to Christ. And then he decided to tell the story of his life and work. Charles Bowden first encountered El Sicario while reporting for the book "Murder City". As trust between the two men developed, Bowden bore witness to the Sicario's unfolding confession, and decided to tell his story. The well-spoken man that emerges from the pages of El Sicario is one who has been groomed by poverty and driven by a refusal to be one more statistic in the failure of Mexico. He is not boastful, he claims no major standing in organized crime. But he can explain in detail not only torture and murder, but how power is distributed and used in the arrangement between the public Mexican state and law enforcement on the ground - where terror and slaughter are simply tools in implementing policy for both the police and the cartels. And he is not an outlaw or a rebel. He is the state. When he headed the state police anti-kidnapping squad in Juarez, he was also running a kidnapping ring in Juarez. When he was killing people for money in Juarez, he was sharpening his marksmanship at the Federal Police range. Now he lives in the United States as a fugitive. One cartel has a quarter million dollar contract on his head. Another cartel is trying to recruit him. He speaks as a free man and of his own free will - there are no charges against him. He is a lonely voice - no one with his background has ever come forward and talked. He is the future - there are thousands of men like him in Mexico and there will be more in other places. He is the truth no one wants to hear.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781568586687
Publisher:	PublicAffairs
Publication date:	05/10/2011
Sold by:	Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format:	eBook
Pages:	224
Sales rank:	46,955
File size:	1 MB
Age Range:	13 - 18 Years

About the Author

The recipient of a Lannan Literary Award for Nonfiction and the Sidney Hillman Award, Charles Bowden is the critically acclaimed author of Murder City. He lives in Tucson.

Editorial Reviews

A reformed assassin's tell-all of the horrors endured and executed throughout his years in the Mexican drug trade.

Editors Molloy (Research Librarian/New Mexico State Univ.) and Bowden (Murder City, 2010, etc.) introduce the reader to the mysterious El Sicario, a high-level killer speaking out for the first time. While the editors offer the necessary frontmatter and editorial work, the vast majority of the book is dedicated to the assassin's first-person account. El Sicario charts his path from poverty-stricken child to notorious killer, citing an incident in his early years in which an unsuccessful attempt to defend his older brother's honor ended in his own beating. "This caused a lot of bitterness inside of me," he says. "And I was traumatized that I was not able to defend myself." The experience emboldened the young boy, prompting him to dedicate his adolescence to becoming a drug mule, fully aware of the power and wealth that accompanied the risk. "To be sixteen years old and to be able to live like this!" he says. "To have money and to be able to invite any girl I wanted to go out to eat in nice restaurants with me." His adulthood was spent as a corrupt Mexican police officer, offering him clear access into the corruption within the force. He exposes the systematic organization of the drug traffickers themselves, how groups are trained for a singular murderous purpose—all part of an elaborate system to "obscure the knowledge of where all of these bodies are buried."

While somewhat unique, El Sicario's tale is also quite familiar—one in which the power of money, drugs and women all play a role in achieving the necessary numbness required to carry out unspeakable crimes.

Kirkus Reviews