Trollope at her best

Undeniably warmhearted and socially topical...above all a novel filled with good advice

Truly, I couldn't put it down. I'm telling you, Trollope is a significant chronicler

Trollope has a keen ear for the yelps of distress, as lives are sliced in half by shabby betrayal... A book that is as enjoyable as it is thoughtful

Trollope's bleakest and most satisfying work to date

At times funny, at others achingly sad, this book will cheer you and charm you

Ed Vulliamy provides a brilliant, rigorous analysis

With a great sense of timing, Vulliamy now comes out with the most vivid book so far published in English on the bloody calamity that has been visited on Mexico's northern border lands... The author has done a great deal of painstaking work in investigating and describing the blood-soaked frontier and the political cross-currants in both regions... it stands that this is a fascinating introduction to the bloody last act of the "war on drugs", which must surely soon pass unlamented into history

This absorbing odyssey along the Mexican-American border gives pause for thought to anyone who ignores the side-effects of cocaine...Vulliamy's reporting is faultlessly brave ...the scenery and characters he meets are brought alive with vividness and intensity'