Fear Is Just a Word

Starred review from July 17, 2023
New York Times reporter Ahmed debuts with a riveting chronicle of Mexico’s cartels told through the story of one family who became their target. In 2010, the vicious Zeta cartel took control of the small Mexican town of San Fernando after a bloody fight with the Gulf cartel. Kidnappings and murders escalated for years under Zeta rule, until the “disappeared” numbered in the hundreds. Divorced, middle-aged mother Miriam Rodriguez had her quiet life in San Fernando turned upside down when the Zetas took her daughter, Karen, in 2012. Rodriguez paid the $77,000 ransom for Karen’s safe return, but she never turned up. Devastated, Rodriguez came to accept that Karen had been killed and resolved to track down the people responsible. Battling both cartels and corrupt local officials, she used Facebook and anonymous tips to find and detain a long list of targets connected to Karen’s disappearance, taking down 10 in all. On Mother’s Day, 2017, Rodriguez was gunned down outside her home shortly after turning in the latest of Karen’s captors. Though Ahmed offers glimmers of hope throughout, his ultimate outlook is bleak: “Some life had returned to San Fernando from the worst days,” he writes about Miriam’s successes in weakening Zeta leadership and reducing violence in the region. “But the empty relics of better times still paid tribute to before.” Painstakingly reported and propulsively written, this is nearly impossible to put down. Agent: Amanda Urban, ICM Partners.

May 31, 2024

New York Times international investigative correspondent Ahmed debuts with a harrowing look at the violence wrought by the ruthless Los Zetas drug cartel. Ahmed tells the story of Miriam Rodr�guez, whose 20-year-old daughter Karen was abducted from the small town of San Fernando in Tamaulipas, Mexico, in 2012. When it became clear that Karen had been killed, Rodr�guez stopped at nothing in her fight to track down the murderers. Narrator Sheldon Romero grimly conveys the solemn tone of the story, launching with a Latin proverb and an interlude in Spanish, gravely stating that the disappeared leave little for others to sweep up. Romero communicates the spellbinding trepidation underlying Ahmed's narrative, which describes life under the reign of the cartel, which took command of the city in 2010. Ahmed traces the history of cartel wars in Mexico, describing the escalation of killings and kidnappings and the entrenched corruption within local law enforcement. At the same time, he brings a deeply human note to the story as he details Rodr�guez's vigilante-level quest for justice. VERDICT A heart-wrenching depiction of violence and a mother's love. Recommended for listeners who appreciated Cristina Rivera Garza's Liliana's Invincible Summer.--Mitzi Mack

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