Reviews
"As Mexico's media outlets stopped reporting on the cartels and the government remained silent, Blog del Narco, launched in March 2010, began to fill the void. The blog featured raw photos and videos of executions, and gun battles uploaded by anonymous contributors. Within months, Blog del Narco was one of the most visited websites in Mexico with 3m monthly visitors. The blog documented the drug war in all its horror: photos of decapitated heads, mutilated torsos and other stomach-jarring acts of violence committed by organized crime to induce terror among the population." - The Guardian " ...the people who keep the blog running risk their lives to do so. The book, which will be published in both English and Spanish by Feral House, will include a selection of the most relevant posts and pictures published between March 2, 2010, when the blog first started, and February 2011. Choosing to remain fully anonymous for safety reasons, the blog's editor finally agreed to talk about her work, the threats and the trials she and the site's programmer have faced in order to keep this project alive for so long." - VICE Magazine "Truth is risky, and sometimes it's also harsh. Here is the reality of the Mexican Drug War, created in part by American demand for the products controlled by the cartels and their government collaborators." - Hispanically Speaking News "Compiled by the anonymous (out of legitimate concern for their lives) reporters of Mexico's Blog del Naco site, DYING FOR THE TRUTH is a truly frightening book. Not just for the abundantly graphic full-color true crime photographs arrayed throughout, but because it condenses an era of utter present-day terror into a deceptively compact yet alarmingly comprehensive volume. Even the inside covers, with their disaster area-style maps of death tolls, by province, throughout the exponentially escalating drug war are startling. And for Mexico this is not past tense or pulp fiction, it's every day." - Paniscus Review, "As Mexico's media outlets stopped reporting on the cartels and the government remained silent, Blog del Narco, launched in March 2010, began to fill the void. The blog featured raw photos and videos of executions, and gun battles uploaded by anonymous contributors. Within months, Blog del Narco was one of the most visited websites in Mexico with 3m monthly visitors. The blog documented the drug war in all its horror: photos of decapitated heads, mutilated torsos and other stomach-jarring acts of violence committed by organized crime to induce terror among the population." - The Guardian " ...the people who keep the blog running risk their lives to do so. The book, which will be published in both English and Spanish by Feral House, will include a selection of the most relevant posts and pictures published between March 2, 2010, when the blog first started, and February 2011. Choosing to remain fully anonymous for safety reasons, the blog's editor finally agreed to talk about her work, the threats and the trials she and the site's programmer have faced in order to keep this project alive for so long." - VICE Magazine "Truth is risky, and sometimes it's also harsh. Here is the reality of the Mexican Drug War, created in part by American demand for the products controlled by the cartels and their government collaborators." - Hispanically Speaking News "Compiled by the anonymous (out of legitimate concern for their lives) reporters of Mexico's Blog del Naco site, DYING FOR THE TRUTH is a truly frightening book. Not just for the abundantly graphic full-color true crime photographs arrayed throughout, but because it condenses an era of utter present-day terror into a deceptively compact yet alarmingly comprehensive volume. Even the inside covers, with their disaster area-style maps of death tolls, by province, throughout the exponentially escalating drug war are startling. And for Mexico this is not past tense or pulp fiction, it's every day." - Paniscus Review "The book is horrifying, but the group's noble goals-to reveal the brutal acts committed in their country by the often glamorously-portrayed cartels-require a tremendous amount of bravery and resolve." - Publishers Weekly "If it were a work of literary artifice, Dying for the Truth would be wildly and stunningly successful. Like JG Ballard doing bad acid after a three-day meth bender, the anonymous contributors drag readers through a nightmarish and surrealistic Grand Guignol via a multimedia mix of torture/execution videos, interrogation transcripts (almost always followed by the execution of the prisoners by heavily armed masked men in paramilitary garb), gruesome atrocity exhibition photos (skinned faces sewn onto soccer balls, anyone?), charts and graphs, and the day-by-day killings, bombings, shootouts and busts that constitute Mexico's drug wars." --Phillip Smith, Drug Chronicle, "As Mexico's media outlets stopped reporting on the cartels and the government remained silent, Blog del Narco, launched in March 2010, began to fill the void. The blog featured raw photos and videos of executions, and gun battles uploaded by anonymous contributors. Within months, Blog del Narco was one of the most visited websites in Mexico with 3m monthly visitors. The blog documented the drug war in all its horror: photos of decapitated heads, mutilated torsos and other stomach-jarring acts of violence committed by organized crime to induce terror among the population." - The Guardian " ...the people who keep the blog running risk their lives to do so. The book, which will be published in both English and Spanish by Feral House, will include a selection of the most relevant posts and pictures published between March 2, 2010, when the blog first started, and February 2011. Choosing to remain fully anonymous for safety reasons, the blog's editor finally agreed to talk about her work, the threats and the trials she and the site's programmer have faced in order to keep this project alive for so long." - VICE Magazine "Truth is risky, and sometimes it's also harsh. Here is the reality of the Mexican Drug War, created in part by American demand for the products controlled by the cartels and their government collaborators." - Hispanically Speaking News "Compiled by the anonymous (out of legitimate concern for their lives) reporters of Mexico's Blog del Naco site, DYING FOR THE TRUTH is a truly frightening book. Not just for the abundantly graphic full-color true crime photographs arrayed throughout, but because it condenses an era of utter present-day terror into a deceptively compact yet alarmingly comprehensive volume. Even the inside covers, with their disaster area-style maps of death tolls, by province, throughout the exponentially escalating drug war are startling. And for Mexico this is not past tense or pulp fiction, it's every day." - Paniscus Review "The book is horrifying, but the group's noble goals-to reveal the brutal acts committed in their country by the often glamorously-portrayed cartels-require a tremendous amount of bravery and resolve." - Publishers Weekly "If it were a work of literary artifice, Dying for the Truth would be wildly and stunningly successful. Like JG Ballard doing bad acid after a three-day meth bender, the anonymous contributors drag readers through a nightmarish and surrealistic Grand Guignol via a multimedia mix of torture/execution videos, interrogation transcripts (almost always followed by the execution of the prisoners by heavily armed masked men in paramilitary garb), gruesome atrocity exhibition photos (skinned faces sewn onto soccer balls, anyone?), charts and graphs, and the day-by-day killings, bombings, shootouts and busts that constitute Mexico's drug wars." --Phillip Smith, Drug Chronicle Definitely not one for the squeamish, this horrific expose of the Mexican drug wars serves a different (but more important) purpose to anything else on this list. -- Bizarre Magazine
