Fear Is Just a Word - A Missing Daughter, a Violent Cartel, and a Mother s Quest

Informationen zum Autor Azam Ahmed is an international investigative correspondent for The New York Times . He is the former New York Times bureau chief in Mexico, and previously was the New York Times bureau chief in Afghanistan. Klappentext "This unputdownable book weaves together two stories: the story of a courageous mother, and the story of the rise of drug cartels and of violence in Mexico. The story begins on an international bridge between Mexico and the U.S. Miriam Rodriguez is stalking one of the men who murdered her daughter. He is a member of the Zeta drug cartel that now controls what was once Miriam's quiet hometown of San Fernando, near the U.S. border. Having dyed her hair red and wearing a disguise, Miriam single-handedly orchestrates the arrest of this man, one of the many men she has targeted and gotten arrested for the murder of her daughter, Karen. Moving back and forth in time, this deeply researched account reveals how the drug cartels built their power in Mexico; how the Zeta cartel took over the quiet town of San Fernando, with its crucial geographic location for drug smuggling, near a crossroads to the US border; and how the cartels, for money, power and control, kidnap and murder victims. Miriam's daughter, Karen, was just one of the many people disappeared by the cartels. Miriam, a brilliant and perseverant woman, begins a vigilante crusade to target Karen's killers, and then to help other victimized families seek justice. Eventually, the success of Miriam's investigation techniques and her activism on behalf of other families lead to her being murdered by the cartel. Then, her son, Luis, finds his mother's briefcase with the names of other targets and her investigation techniques, and quietly continues to pursue justice for his family and for the families of other victims of violence in Mexico"-- Leseprobe A Lost Daughter It was 4 a.m. on January 24, 2014, when Miriam’s phone rang and her daughter Azalea’s name popped up. “What happened?” Miriam asked. “Something awful.” “With Ernesto?” Miriam asked. “No,” Azalea answered, now sobbing. “With Karen.” After hanging up with her daughter, Miriam had quickly packed and left a note for the family she was working for in McAllen, Texas. She told them she would not be coming back. By 6 a.m. on that day four years after the Zeta takeover of San Fernando, Miriam Rodríguez stood outside in the stark January winter waiting for the bus from Reynosa to San Fernando, a two-­hour journey through the center of the state. She had made her way to the international bridge in Reynosa, the same one she had carried Karen across more than twenty years earlier, when Karen was a toddler. On the bus to San Fernando, Miriam sat near the back and silently wept in the near dark. A few people tried to console her. She understood now that the sympathy of outsiders could never measure up to the chasm left by a kidnapped loved one. An elderly man across the aisle handed her his handkerchief. “Are you okay?” he asked. Miriam, normally guarded around strangers, told him her daughter had been kidnapped by the Zeta cartel. The man nodded, pulled a scrap of paper from his pocket, scribbled something onto it, and handed it to her. “That is the name and telephone number of my son,” he told her. “He’s a lieutenant in the marines.” Miriam stuffed the number into her purse and forgot about it. Shortly after 8 a.m., the bus entered the municipality of San Fernando. Hours earlier, Azalea, who was thirty-­four and married, had been half asleep when she heard movement near her front door, the slow shuffle of feet across the patio tile and a low groan that she could recognize anywhere: her father. I. A Lost Daughter It was 4 a.m. on January 24, 2014, when Miriam’s phone rang and her daughter Azalea’s name popped up. “What h...

Product details

• Authors: Azam Ahmed
• Publisher: Random House USA
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 26.09.2023
• EAN: 9780593448410
• ISBN: 978-0-593-44841-0
• No. of pages: 384
• Dimensions: 160 mm x 240 mm x 30 mm
• Subject: Fiction > Narrative literature > Letters, diaries