Maybe the most apoplectic book I’ve read. But appropriately so. From young career to disillusioned and dirty, the book traces, America’s “war on drugs” via polyphonic means. Characters are culled and cultivated. None of them are safe. People can and do, fairly often, get killed, quite grizzly in a few cases. It condemns basically everyone. From the U.S Government operating “legally” to further its own aims (should be all old hat for most readers, aside from a few hyper specific particulars) to the intricacies of the government in Mexico being essentially owned by Narcos as the U.S is owned by corporations. Dirty cops, dirty money. Sex, death, you know the recipe.

The difference is that this narrative is specifically looking to deliver an action packed crime novel that is far more concerned with power structures and transparently showing how the system itself cannot be reformed. The people are cogs in the machine being churned. And it’s quite effective at this. Surprisingly so, in fact. The plotting is well handled, and intricate; the prose are just short of great, and tend to take on the qualities of the narrator. It shouldn’t work, but does. It takes on a simultaneously cinematic and intimate quality. A couple character arcs are absolutely perfect.

The audiobook is fan-freaking-tastic. The narrator does everyone’s voices differently and takes on the aforementioned qualities to great effect. It’s an exemplary experience.

So, why no 5 stars? It’s also got some of the melodramatic, shock factor, tropey and lazy hallmarks of this kind of fiction, and movie. Maybe it’s because I’m consuming it now and not when it first came out. But this is like the story of the “DEA” agent in Sicario mixed with, literally, Narcos. It’s more intelligent and all encompassing than those. But it doesn’t actually do anything new, and the shock factor moments can be a little too emotionally manipulative. It does nail it most of the time, though. People say Elroy is better—can’t wait to consume some of that, if true.