Crime and security expert Vanda Felbab-Brown conducted more than eight years of fieldwork across Mexico analyzing policy interventions in key crime and violence hotspots, as well as in control cases. The result is Narco Noir: Mexico's Cartels, Cops, and Corruption, an extensive and unique set of organized crime case studies that include principal cases like, Ciudad Juarez, Tijuana, Monterrey, Michoacan, and Chiapas - as well as in Mexico City. Narco Noir provides detailed assessments of the various law enforcement strategies, socio-economic anti-crime policies, and civil society mobilization efforts in key violent hotspots. The cases cover a wide variety of crime patterns and dynamics as well as policy responses. Felbab-Brown also includes an extensive section of policy recommendations, providing a detailed analysis of how to improve law enforcement capacity and strategies, change interdiction patterns to achieve greater deterrence capacity, and restructure socio-economic anti-crime policies.

This book is our sixth Small Wars Journal—El Centro anthology, covering writings published between 2016 and 2017. The theme of this anthology pertains to the rise of the narcostate (mafia states) as a result of the collusion between criminal organizations and political elites—essentially authoritarian regime members, corrupted plutocrats, and other powerful societal elements. The cover image of the mass demonstration concerning the disappearance of the forty-three Ayotzinapa Teachers’ College students held at Mexico City’s Zócalo Plaza in November 2014 provides an archetype of this anthology’s theme. This anthology includes the following special essays—Preface: “New Wars” and State Transformation by Robert Muggah, Igarapé Institute; Foreword: Crime and State-Making by Vanda Felbab-Brown, The Brookings Institution; Postscript: Crime, Drugs, Terror, and Money: Time for Hybrids by Alain Bauer, CNAM Paris; and Afterword: The Rise of the Oligarchs by Col. Robert Killebrew, US Army (Ret.). Dave Dilegge (SWJ, Editor-in-Chief)

Through political and cultural analysis of representations of the so-called war on drugs, Oswaldo Zavala makes the case that the very terms we use to describe drug traffickers are a constructed subterfuge for the real narcos: politicians, corporations, and the military. Though Donald Trump's incendiary comments and monstrous policies on the border revealed the character of a deeply depraved leader, state violence on both sides of the border is nothing new. Immigration has endured as a prevailing news topic, but it is a fixture of modern society in the neoliberal era; the future will be one of exile brought on by state violence and the plundering of our natural resources to sate capitalist greed. Yet the realities of violence in Mexico and along the border are obscured by the books, films, and TV series we consume. In truth, works like Sicario, The Queen of the South, and Narcos hide Mexico's political realities. Alongside these examples, Zavala discusses Charles Bowden, 2666 by Roberto Bolaño, and other important Latin American writers as examples of those who do capture the realities of the drug war. Translated into English by William Savinar, Drug Cartels Do Not Exist will be useful for journalists, political scientists, philosophers, and writers of any kind who wish to break down the constructed barriers—physical and mental—created by those in power around the reality of the Mexican drug trade.

Book 8 in the series: A bitter past drives Acapulco's first female police detective into a Hollywood film starring lies and murder when she goes undercover to catch a killer. As the camera rolls, Detective Emilia Cruz will face her toughest case yet.After witnessing the execution-style murder of a taxi driver, Emilia replaces him behind the wheel. Undercover with a false identity, her target is a shadowy gang extorting protection money from the upscale taxi service.Oddly enough, no one in Acapulco has heard of the gang. The homicide investigation is soon stuck in neutral. Yet the threat of another murder has all the drivers, including Emilia, scared to death.But when Emilia's worst enemy gets into her taxi, both her life and the murder case accelerate out of control. Next stop, a movie set where a second undercover role awaits.The script is a nightmare. The director's cut is a double-cross. The leading man has looks that could kill. Can Emilia act her way out of murder?

This volume builds on previous notions of transmedia practices to develop the concept of transtexts, in order to account for both the industrial and user-generated contributions to the cross-media expansion of a story universe. On the one hand exists industrial transmedia texts, produced by supposedly authoritative authors or entities and directed to active audiences in the aim of fostering engagement. On the other hand are fan-produced transmedia texts, primarily intended for fellow members of the fan communities, with the Internet allowing for connections and collaboration between fans. Through both case studies and more general analyses of audience participation and reception, employing the artistic, marketing, textual, industrial, cultural, social, geographical, technological, historical, financial and legal perspectives, this multidisciplinary collection aims to expand our understanding of both transmedia storytelling and fan-produced transmedia texts.

Enter the dark welter of troubled history throughout the Americas, where a heritage of violence meets the ferocity of intent. This sharp, stylised and ambitious anthology of Native American literature sees authors of Indian heritage or blood join non-Indian authors in creating these diverse, gripping, dubious and sleazy stories. Includes contributions from award-winning author Reed Farrel Coleman and Lawrence Block, author of Hit and Run (Orion, 2009).

" Conventional political theory holds that the sovereign state is the legitimate source of order and provider of public services in any society, whether democratic or not. But Hezbollah and ISIS in the Middle East, pirate clans in Africa, criminal gangs in South America, and militias in Southeast Asia are examples of nonstate actors that control local territory and render public services that the nation-state cannot or will not provide. This fascinating book takes the reader around the world to areas where national governance has broken down—or never really existed. In these places, the vacuum has been filled by local gangs, militias, and warlords, some with ideological or political agendas and others focused primarily on economic gain. Many of these actors have substantial popularity and support among local populations and have developed their own enduring institutions, often undermining the legitimacy of the national state. The authors show that the rest of the world has more than a passing interest in these situations, in part because transborder crime and terrorism often emerge but also because failed states threaten international interests from trade to security. This book also poses, and offers answers for, the question: How should the international community respond to local orders dominated by armed nonstate actors? In many cases outsiders have taken the short-term route—accepting unsavory local actors out of expediency—but at the price of long-term instability or damage to human rights and other considerations. From Africa and the Middle East to Asia and Latin America, the local situations highlighted in this book are, and will remain, high on today's international agenda. The book makes a unique contribution to global understanding of how those situations developed and what can be done about them. This title is part of the Geopolitics in the 21st Century series. "