Twilight on the Line: Underworlds and Politics at the Mexican Border
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Book Overview
It would seem the stuff of a fevered thriller if it were not all true: Street gang members from San Diego recruited by a drug cartel are embroiled in the murder of a Roman Catholic cardinal at the Guadalajara airport. Border guards struggle to resist the relentless temptation, despair, and lawlessness at the international line, while Mexican federal police ride shotgun for drug lords in Chevy Suburbans stolen in San Diego. A tunnel is dug under the U.S.-Mexico border to a cannery where cocaine is to be hidden in cans of jalapeno peppers. An alliance of Asian and Mexican racketeers smuggle hundreds of Chinese immigrants. A factory worker assassinates the probable next president of Mexico during a campaign rally, and the bosses of his own party are suspected of being the masterminds. And in a surreal penal village, inmates live with their wives and children, entrepreneurs run businesses, and gangsters live in luxury. This is the U.S.-Mexico border in the 1990s, in the age of NAFTA-a microcosm of porous borders everywhere between the worlds of wealth and poverty, legal and illegal business, power and corruption, democracy and authoritarianism, hope and despair. Sebastian Rotella's masterful portrait of the border is one you will not easily forget.
Format:Hardcover
Language:English
ISBN:0393041131
ISBN13:9780393041132
Release Date:January 1998
Publisher:W. W. Norton & Company
Length:320 Pages
Weight:0.35 lbs.
Dimensions:1.2" x 5.9" x 8.6"
Customer Reviews
5 ratings
An intense and insightful view of Mexico/US border issues.
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 23 years ago
A terrific journalist, Sebastian Rotella was the LA Times guy in Mexico, now he's in South America. This is a great read for anyone who wonders what goes on at the border besides guards, people spilling over walls and American teens going to Tijuana to drink. He explores both sides of the fence and scratches the surface to find out what lies beneath.
Enthralling
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 23 years ago
This is a captivating book about the amazing underworld and life of the US/Mexico border between Tijuana and San Diego. Rotella did many in depth interviews and first-person research in writing this book. The reader can feel the desperation of those he met with and quotes frequently, several of whom have been killed in the past few years for their efforts to end corruption and drug trafficking in Mexico. For anyone not familiar with the corruption and assassination scandals to come out of Mexico in the past decade, this book will simply amaze you. For those who are more familiar with Mexico's political situation and how it relates to the U.S.'s southern border, and the people directly affected by immigration there, this book is still an informational, emotional account worth reading.
An outstanding and fascinating revelation of the border
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 25 years ago
From the first page, you will not be able to stop until the last one. Backed with a deep professional research, this story of real life is told in such an intelligent narrative style that it seems like a novel. Clever, entertaining, revealing and enjoyable. A must!
Vivid prose, keen insight.
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 26 years ago
Vivid descriptions and compelling scenarios make this book such fascinating reading that it's disappointing to discover that "Twilight" focuses almost exclusively on Tijuana, while ignoring the other 1980 miles of the border. The description of the Colosio investigations get a bit tedious, but overall the book provides excellent reading on a timely topic.
An extraordinary summation of border politics in the '90's
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 26 years ago
Rotella is to be commended for this very informative page-turner. I especially appreciate that he takes an almost apolitical view of the wrenching potentially inflammatory realities he covers; this addresses the intelligence of the reader, and allows the reader to form her or his own opinions. I have read many books on the subject of the Mexican/American border. This one is the best thus far. Journalism of the highest order.
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