"down by the river'' review

8/11/2019 "Down by the River'' Review

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The Denver Post

December22, 2002 Sunday 1ST EDITION

Riverof death, deceit Story of government corruption,

drugs always makes interesting mix

BYLINE:Miles Moffeit, Denver Post Staff Writer

SECTION:BKS; Pg. EE-01

LENGTH:1016 words

There's a dusty, invisible world thriving along the U.S.-Mexican border, and it's mostlyabout drugs, government corruption and killing.

Sometimes the bodies are found tortured beyond recognition, wrapped in tapestries

bearing images of tigers. Sometimes they are riddled with bullets, and they are friends orrelatives of important people in the U.S. and Mexican governments. Sometimes they are

never found, buried somewhere along the killing fields between Juarez, Mexico, and ElPaso, Texas.

In 'Down By the River,' former police reporter Charles Bowden investigates the killing of

one of the recognizable bodies - the brother of a U.S. drug agent. In the process, he opensdoor after secret door into modern-day outlaw Mexico, where the drug lords and the

government embrace one another, where the drug cartels have infiltrated or exertprofound influence over city governments, police, customs, even small towns in Texas,

where so much fear of death rules that culling the truth seems almost impossible.

'Without death, the business simply cannot function,' Bowden writes of the drug cartels

operating with the corporate sophistication of a General Motors. 'And in a business rife

with problems of industrial espionage - the constant danger of snitches - murder and

torture are inescapable business expenses.'

Bowden'sbrilliance is that, with nearly every chapter, you can't help but fixate on

strange, revealing details that you may have never heard but believed you should have

known or seen in newspapers. Like this one: 'The (Amado) Carrillo's organization has,according to numbers compiled by Drug Enforcement Agency, killed six hundred people in

Juarez in the last twenty-four months.'

The aftertaste often is bewilderment, outrage, sadness. What has become of this countryacross the border? How could our country allow this form of terrorism to happen?

It starts in a Kmart parking lot. Bruno Jordan was a clean, likable suit salesman in El Paso,

hoping to attend law school, when he's gunned down one night by what authorities soon

believe is a basic carjacking turned fatal. But, to surviving brother Phil Jordan, a longtimeDEA agent in Texas, it just doesn't make sense. To him, it could be much more: a warning

from drug lords to back off.


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Jordan, working off only shreds of information, decides he must try to find out who ordered

his brother's death. He knows his investigation largely will be an act of vengeance.

But as we have discovered in other Bowdenwritings, simple acts of violence are neversimple. In his essay 'Torch Song,' which has achieved almost cult status, he plumbs

emotional depths many reporters are afraid to talk about. And 'Down By the River,' too, is

a parable for much larger issues about truth, justice, greed and conspiracy and how theyrelate to the 'unofficial economy of the drug business' overseen by U.S. and Mexico -situations our politicians are afraid to talk about.

Besides the unbelievable details Bowdenuncovers surrounding Jordan's death, he reveals

these sobering facts: In Juarez, the Mexican town that sits across the border from El Paso,

at least 2,800 people have been murdered or raped or kidnapped or simply vanished since1993. Within this zone of death reside many of the drug lords whose business brings

Mexico more money than oil and tourism combined.

Sometimes the drug lords' castles are within sight of DEA headquarters. Sometimes theirpets get loose. One lord, Amado Carrillo Fuentes, possibly the world's richest and most

powerful cartel leader before he apparently died in a botched plastic-surgery operation

several years ago, lived in a mansion near the border town of Juarez. He owned amenagerie with tigers. One summer day in 1995, a tiger escaped and roamed the streetsof Juarez before it was captured.

Before long, bodies turn up, bound in duct tape and wrapped in cloths with tiger emblems.

Carrillo not only operated like a CEO in forging business alliances with other cartels acrossLatin America, but he also has his own taunting style.

Carrillo's alleged connections with Carlos Salinas, Mexico's disgraced ex-president, are

explored by Bowden, as are his ties to police and banks. Around every corner, itseems, Bowdenleads us into a not-so-underground drug culture, exposing the deepinfluence of Carrillo and other drug lords.

This is a place where truth is twisted beyond recognition, where bribes keep police andpoliticians quiet. And this is a place where even the past president of Mexico appears

increasingly beholden to the cartels and, possibly, capable of murder. And somewhere,within this enigma of a country, are answers to a suit salesmen's murder.

'Down By the River'coaxes plenty of outrage. Should we, for instance, be mad at

ourselves for stupidly accepting Mexico as a stable democracy while championing tradedeals that benefit the narcotics traffic? Or should we be mad at Mexico for its machine

of deception? As Bowdenpoints out, much of the connections between the cartels and

Mexican government have been known for years, tucked into DEA files.

Bowden'swriting, in the tradition of the best New Journalism, often crackles with poetic

brilliance. But the careening sweep of his prose can be, at times, abrupt. It's the literary

equivalent of the handheld camera - he introduces hundreds of characters and cuts intohundreds of scenes, often with no transition.

In the end, though, the read pays off. 'Down By the River'should be tossed through the

window of every government official in Washington.

"There will be music and laughter, salsa will flavor the gunfire," Bowdenwrites in the

foreword. "Some will say none of this ever happened. But the ground is quaking and in the


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hard cantinas the songs are spewing forth. Come, the dead are crawling out of their

holes."

TICKER: GM (NYSE) (55%);

INDUSTRY: NAICS336112 LIGHT TRUCK & UTILITY VEHICLE

MANUFACTURING (55%); NAICS336111 AUTOMOBILE MANUFACTURING (55%);

COUNTRY: MEXICO (95%); UNITED STATES (94%);

STATE: TEXAS, USA (93%);

CITY: EL PASO, TX, USA (92%);

COMPANY: GENERAL MOTORS CO (55%);

SUBJECT:books CORRUPTION (90%); CONTROLLED SUBSTANCES

CRIME (90%); POLITICAL CORRUPTION (90%); TORTURE (90%); SPECIAL INVESTIGATIVE

FORCES (89%); NARCOTICS

ENFORCEMENT (89%); INVESTIGATIONS (89%); SHOOTINGS (78%); CONSPIRACY (78%);

REGIONAL & LOCAL GOVERNMENTS (78%); LAW ENFORCEMENT (75%); INDUSTRIAL

ESPIONAGE (74%); TERRORISM (73%); UNOFFICIAL

ECONOMY (73%); CARTELS (73%); ESPIONAGE (69%); CITIES (68%); DEATH &

DYING (68%); CITY GOVERNMENT (68%); CARJACKING (60%); MURDER (58%); PARKING

SPACES & FACILITIES (50%);

LOAD-DATE:December 23, 2002

LANGUAGE:ENGLISH

GRAPHIC:PHOTO: Denver Post photo illustration

TYPE:REVIEW

"down by the river'' review

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