Wolf Boys: Two American Teenagers and Mexico's Most Dangerous Drug Cartel
Written by Dan Slater
Narrated by Pete Simonelli
4.5/5
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About this audiobook
In this astonishing story, journalist Dan Slater recounts the unforgettable odyssey of Gabriel Cardona. At first glance, Gabriel is the poster-boy American teenager: athletic, bright, handsome, and charismatic. But the ghettos of Laredo, Texas—his border town—are full of smugglers and gangsters and patrolled by one of the largest law-enforcement complexes in the world. It isn’t long before Gabriel abandons his promising future for the allure of juvenile crime, which leads him across the river to Mexico’s most dangerous drug cartel: Los Zetas. Friends from his childhood join him and eventually they catch the eye of the cartel’s leadership.
As the cartel wars spill over the border, Gabriel and his crew are sent to the States to work. But in Texas, the teen hit men encounter a Mexican-born homicide detective determined to keep cartel violence out of his adopted country. Detective Robert Garcia’s pursuit of the boys puts him face-to-face with the urgent consequences and new security threats of a drug war he sees as unwinnable.
In Wolf Boys, Slater takes readers on a harrowing, often brutal journey into the heart of the Mexican drug trade. Ultimately though, Wolf Boys is the intimate story of the lobos: teens turned into pawns for the cartels. A nonfiction thriller, it reads with the emotional clarity of a great novel, yet offers its revelations through extraordinary reporting.
Dan Slater
A former reporter for The Wall Street Journal, Dan Slater has written for The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, New York magazine, The Atlantic, GQ, and Fast Company. He is the author of Love in the Time of Algorithms. A graduate of Colgate University and Brooklyn Law School, he lives in New England.
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Reviews for Wolf Boys
61 ratings5 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5reaches out and pulls you into a world we don't even begin to understand. made me question what decisions I would have made.
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Sensational read the tale of 3 Parallel lives on the border
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Overall this is a window into understanding what motivates young men to join a drug cartel. In a sentence they do it for riches and bitches. The gangsters believe being able to kill somebody and walk away with no emotions as very tough and strong. They value a detached sense of coldness. Like so many other books, this book is layered with dozens of characters, that overlap one another in a confusing mess. I took copious notes, but still couldn't fully grasp all the story and how its pieces fit together. Why authors don't simply focus on a couple of characters like it says here in the description I just don't know? Perhaps the author felt like all of these other minor characters fit into the story and needed to be part of it, but to a reader trying to appreciate the story all of the minor characters detract from the overall story. This is why I gave it just four stars. Nevertheless, this is an exciting book and well worth your time.
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Couldn't put it down, the author truly engages in primary research/narration like few others do....
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Good book! TERRIBLE narrator. Why do it if you don’t speak Spanish!