Silver Bullets - Tapa blanda

Tormented by past heartbreak and contemporary politics, for Edgar 'Lefty' Mendieta the news of the murder of lawyer Bruno Canizales represents just another day at the office in the drug-ridden city of Culiacan. It soon becomes clear that there is no shortage of suspects in a city where it's hard to tell the gangsters from the politicians. Canizales was the son of a former government minister and the partner of a drug baron's daughter, with his own penchant for cross-dressing and dangerous sex. What is less clear is why the assassin chose to use a silver bullet. And why, two days later, they seem to have struck again. In this sweltering city where a desire for the truth can be as dangerous as any drug, Mendieta's search for justice takes him from mansions to drug dens, in Elmer Mendoza's seminal founding text of Latin America's 'narco-lit' wave.

Elmer Mendoza was born in Culiacan, Mexico in 1949. He is a professor and author, widely regarded as the founder of 'narco-lit', which explores drug trafficking and corruption in Latin America. He won the Jose Fuentes Mares National Literary Prize for Janis Joplin's Lover, and the Tusquets Prize for Silver Bullets. Mark Fried is head of public policy at Oxfam Canada and a literary translator of both fiction and non-fiction.