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Murder City
- Ciudad Juarez and The Global Economy's New Killing Fields
- Narrated by: Charles Bowden
- Length: 8 hrs and 46 mins
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Publisher's summary
Charles Bowden writes, “this book is not about how the world ends but how a new world is being born.” Murder City explores this new world, focusing on the idea that Mexico is collapsing into a permanent culture of violence. Bowden focuses on Ciudad Juarez, which lies just across the Rio Grande from El Paso. Infamously known as the place where women disappear, last year alone 1,607 people were murdered, a number that is set to accelerate in 2009.
Miss Sinaloa is a beauty queen who loses her mind; her descent into madness becomes a parable for the town itself. As Bowden searches for reasons to explain why so many are dying, he realizes that what is happening in Juarez and other border towns—caught in the crosshairs of the drug and immigration wars—represents the total collapse of civic society.
Critic reviews
"Bowden calls himself a reporter, and in a pure sense of the word he really is one. He is also an authentic talent.” (The New York Times Book Review)
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Overall
- Roy
- 04-04-10
Listen Up!
Texans like myself have been following the narco-problems in Ciudad Juarez for some time. Now journalist comes along to jerk us to reality.
Bowden is one of a small number of journalists who have been willing to spend time in the city during its time of demise. This is a page turner filled with stories and observations from the streets. People interested in true crime will find it great. Others concerned about narco-traffic and what it is capable of doing will be disturbed. Those who will take the time to listen will be warned of what is possible.
Well written and the reading is excellent. You may not agree with the conclusions, but your eyes will be opened.
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17 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Riverman63
- 04-12-10
Sobering
This book should be required reading. Bowden - as far as I can tell - has placed his life in peril by writing this book. Purposeful change is unlikely - if not impossible. The culture is cast in blood and concrete. Sadly, the USA will continue to send millions of dollars in guilt money south of the border, Mexico will continue to misdirect the funds. The country and Ciudad Juarez will continue to be "Murder City". This book is an eye opener and should not be missed.
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5 people found this helpful
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- Rory Tek
- 04-08-13
A Good Primer for Any Reader
I enjoyed this book by Charles Bowden, who also narrated it.
He describes the story in his factual, monotone voice, so it's important to get engaged in the story, listen closely, or you may miss key pieces of the book.
This may be on purpose by Bowden, to illustrate the casual savagery, lack of law enforcement, American involvement and Mexican government interests which exists in Juarez.
I found I had to go back over parts to catch back up on the story, as it sometime is a little difficult to stay on top of it, with the slow, unchanging pitch in narration.
However, Bowden's account of the conditions in Juarez are chilling, and his first person description is even more credible. He describes the lawlessness of a city under siege from a citizen's perspective, having interviewed and spent time with innocents living in this city during the writing of this book.
He uses the experiences of real people, for example, Miss Sinaloa, a beauty queen abducted by a Mexican drug cartel and eventually freed only to be placed in a mental institution, as a backdrop to his story. He educates us on the rise of the Mexican cartels, the power and pure brutality which they possess, and the influence on authority and government which allows free range activity south of the border in Juarez.
This book is somewhat of a primer and close-up look into the changing political landscape which includes now includes the drug cartels as a financial power base in Mexico. Its an interesting listen and will bring anybody who reads it up to speed on a situation in Mexico which has escalated in notoriety and presence over the last 7 years.
I would recommend it to readers interested in this topic.
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3 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Flavius Krakdaddius
- 09-01-10
Every Review Is Correct
I don't know how much this will help prospective readers, but I can't make up my mind about this book. At times I thought it was beautiful and haunting, others repetitive and dishonest.
This book is written like poetry, and has no coherent structure and shifting themes. Still, it is beautifully written in places, and Bowden's growling, Burroughs-like voice seems perfect for what he is trying to do.
Which begs the question: What is Bowden trying to do? It's never clear, and the same details and observations repeated time after time do not help.
In the end I don't know what to say about this book. I can't recommend it, but there is much to recommend in it.
At any rate, my conclusions regarding this book are no less firm than Bowden's regarding Juarez.
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Benjamin
- 05-17-10
Pass
There is no cohesive organization to this book, it is as though the author wrote it in stream of consciousness, just one vignette after another with no direction or purpose. He has no comprehensive thesis other than to say that the drug war is not working, everything we are told about it is a lie and nothing is being done about it.
NOT A GOOD LISTEN. DITCH IT, FIND SOMETHING ELSE, YOU'VE BEEN WARNED. I figured I would give it the benefit of the doubt despite the other bad reviews, I'm not sorry I wasted the credit.
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- Steve360
- 04-14-17
Charles Bowden is the Man
Absolutely beautifully written and narrated. Descriptive and educating, as well as dark and unfiltered. Charles Bowden is the real deal and it shows--he's done his homework on this subject and not on a computer, on los calles of ciudad Juarez. He explores the dark alleys, talks to people on all sides on the violence, and knows the history of Mexico and the US, as well as 'the war on drugs', extremely well. He is an authority on this gruesome topic, and weaves this story with such articulate vision that you can imagine every scene. I am just about done with the book and very bummed about it. One of my favs for sure. Would love to meet him someday and talk about his book.
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- vurnt22
- 09-23-14
Required Reading In A Post NAFTA World
Charles Bowden was a brilliant & haunted journalist & essayist who braved the terrifying reality of Juarez Mexico in Murder City; a Noirish Pulp tinged chronicle of a city suspended between the economic purgatory of the NAFTA licensed Global Economic World Order which kills it's citizens slowly & methodically, & the hellish nightmare of the murderous caprices of it's Narco Economy-a beast with tentacles whose reach go far beyond the ineffectual Secured Border with the USA. Bowden was a chronicler & witness for the tortured, the disappeared, the gunned down & the silenced, even for the killer El Sicarios who act without hesitation & remorse with the result of THOUSANDS of Undocumented murders.
Charles Bowden reading his own work is compelling & unflinching; a voice from the grave long before his untimely demise this year. If you're a fan of Bukowski, Hunter S. Thompson, William Burroughs, or Tom Waits, his voice will seem familiar and welcome, warning of a realtime Dystopian Present that can be Our Future.
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1 person found this helpful
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- buster
- 08-01-10
Good Message; Bad Book
Poorly written book which repeated itself over and over. Don't waste your time. I listened to the end hoping it would get better but it didn't
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- M
- 02-25-21
frustrating and incoherent
This book had a lot of potential, but was ruined by Bowden's obnoxious stream of consciousness writing style, and poor narration. I think the author was trying to be poetic, but it came across as if a Beat poet obsessed freshman English major wrote it. It feels like he began by writing the prologue, and forgot to get around to the actual book.
Sometimes the stories are interesting, but usually end up as window dressing for Bowden's repetitive angst. Other aspects are just bizarre such as him repeatedly saying we're all destined to end up like Juarez. He never bothers to explain how, and ten years on there's no sign of it happening.
Having Bowden read it was another poor choice because he only speaks in the same dull monotone, and sounds like he's constantly about to fall asleep.
There are a few bright spots. Sometimes the stories aren't drowned out by Bowden's fixation with himself, and sometimes his writing becomes lyrical instead of monotonous. I'd still recommend only reading/listening if you can get it for free.
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- Marc Bethea
- 05-20-20
Mindnumbingly depressing
I'm about a quarter way into this, and I'll get through it. I think it would have been better to have a professional narrator. Mr. Bowden's worldweariness after awhile comes across as affected and certainly monotonous.
From what I've read elsewhere, Mr. Bowden is a great fan of the "undocumented." I think what I'm supposed to take away is that we should welcome all of Juarez's inhabitants because somehow the violence is all our fault anyway. Nothing I've heard, however, convinces me that Trump is wrong to build a wall and build it high. Of course, I'm just an ignorant red state redneck so what do I know.
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In this ground-shaking, breath-taking cri de coeur, Bowden delves with love-driven fury for the roots of our brutal history in this once-brave New World. The figures he casts before us - from Pancho Villa to a modern-day drug lord, from General Sherman to a skid-row Sioux named Robert Sundance - trace a story not so much of rapaciousness as of fear and loathing. Bowden twines it with the natural history of the hammer orchid, a carnivore whose deceptive delicacy comes to stand for the terror and hypocrisy that have perverted our love of the land, its peoples, and our very natures.
By: Charles Bowden
-
El Narco
- The Bloody Rise of Mexican Drug Cartels
- By: Ioan Grillo
- Narrated by: Paul Thornley
- Length: 13 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
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Performance
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Story
The world has watched stunned at the bloodshed in Mexico. Thirty thousand murdered since 2006; police chiefs shot within hours of taking office; mass graves comparable to those of civil wars; car bombs shattering storefronts; headless corpses heaped in town squares. The United States throws Black Hawk helicopters and drug agents at the problem. But in secret, Washington is confused and divided about what to do. "Who are these mysterious figures tearing Mexico apart?" they wonder.
-
-
Great book ruined by bad narration
- By Robert Pitman on 08-17-12
By: Ioan Grillo
-
Blood Gun Money
- How America Arms Gangs and Cartels
- By: Ioan Grillo
- Narrated by: Shawn Compton
- Length: 12 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The gun control debate is revived with every mass shooting. But far more people die from gun deaths on the street corners of inner city America and across the border as Mexico’s powerful cartels battle to control the drug trade. Guns and drugs aren’t often connected in our heated discussions of gun control - but they should be. In Ioan Grillo’s groundbreaking new work of investigative journalism, he shows us this connection by following the market for guns in the Americas and how it has made the continent the most murderous on earth.
-
-
Another great book by Ioan Grillo.
- By Cody Bad on 03-01-21
By: Ioan Grillo
-
Blues for Cannibals
- The Notes from Underground
- By: Charles Bowden
- Narrated by: Gary Roelofs
- Length: 12 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Cultivated from the fierce ideas seeded in Blood Orchid, Blues for Cannibals is an elegiac reflection on death, pain, and a wavering confidence in humanity’s own abilities for self-preservation. After years of reporting on border violence, sex crimes, and the devastation of the land, Bowden struggles to make sense of the many ways in which we destroy ourselves and whether there is any way to survive.
-
-
From a master
- By Ol' Buck on 11-22-23
By: Charles Bowden
-
Gangs of the El Paso-Juárez Borderland
- A History
- By: Mike Tapia
- Narrated by: Timothy Andrés Pabon
- Length: 6 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This thought-provoking book examines gang history in the region encompassing West Texas, Southern New Mexico, and Northern Chihuahua, Mexico. Known as the El Paso-Juárez borderland region, the area contains more than three million people spanning 130 miles from east to west. Mike Tapia examines this region by exploring a century of historical developments through a criminological lens and by studying the diverse subcultures on both sides of the law.
-
-
it was ok
- By Carlos A Palomo on 05-31-22
By: Mike Tapia
-
The Red Caddy
- Into the Unknown with Edward Abbey
- By: Charles Bowden
- Narrated by: Brian Troxell
- Length: 3 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A passionate advocate for preserving wilderness and fighting the bureaucratic and business forces that would destroy it, Edward Abbey (1927-1989) wrote fierce, polemical books such as Desert Solitaire and The Monkey Wrench Gang that continue to inspire environmental activists.
-
-
Up Against the Wall! We've come for your dozer!
- By Andrew Caffrey on 05-21-22
By: Charles Bowden
-
Blood Orchid
- An Unnatural History of America
- By: Charles Bowden
- Narrated by: Gary Roelofs
- Length: 10 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this ground-shaking, breath-taking cri de coeur, Bowden delves with love-driven fury for the roots of our brutal history in this once-brave New World. The figures he casts before us - from Pancho Villa to a modern-day drug lord, from General Sherman to a skid-row Sioux named Robert Sundance - trace a story not so much of rapaciousness as of fear and loathing. Bowden twines it with the natural history of the hammer orchid, a carnivore whose deceptive delicacy comes to stand for the terror and hypocrisy that have perverted our love of the land, its peoples, and our very natures.
By: Charles Bowden
-
El Narco
- The Bloody Rise of Mexican Drug Cartels
- By: Ioan Grillo
- Narrated by: Paul Thornley
- Length: 13 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The world has watched stunned at the bloodshed in Mexico. Thirty thousand murdered since 2006; police chiefs shot within hours of taking office; mass graves comparable to those of civil wars; car bombs shattering storefronts; headless corpses heaped in town squares. The United States throws Black Hawk helicopters and drug agents at the problem. But in secret, Washington is confused and divided about what to do. "Who are these mysterious figures tearing Mexico apart?" they wonder.
-
-
Great book ruined by bad narration
- By Robert Pitman on 08-17-12
By: Ioan Grillo
-
Blood Gun Money
- How America Arms Gangs and Cartels
- By: Ioan Grillo
- Narrated by: Shawn Compton
- Length: 12 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The gun control debate is revived with every mass shooting. But far more people die from gun deaths on the street corners of inner city America and across the border as Mexico’s powerful cartels battle to control the drug trade. Guns and drugs aren’t often connected in our heated discussions of gun control - but they should be. In Ioan Grillo’s groundbreaking new work of investigative journalism, he shows us this connection by following the market for guns in the Americas and how it has made the continent the most murderous on earth.
-
-
Another great book by Ioan Grillo.
- By Cody Bad on 03-01-21
By: Ioan Grillo
-
Blues for Cannibals
- The Notes from Underground
- By: Charles Bowden
- Narrated by: Gary Roelofs
- Length: 12 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Cultivated from the fierce ideas seeded in Blood Orchid, Blues for Cannibals is an elegiac reflection on death, pain, and a wavering confidence in humanity’s own abilities for self-preservation. After years of reporting on border violence, sex crimes, and the devastation of the land, Bowden struggles to make sense of the many ways in which we destroy ourselves and whether there is any way to survive.
-
-
From a master
- By Ol' Buck on 11-22-23
By: Charles Bowden
-
Gangs of the El Paso-Juárez Borderland
- A History
- By: Mike Tapia
- Narrated by: Timothy Andrés Pabon
- Length: 6 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This thought-provoking book examines gang history in the region encompassing West Texas, Southern New Mexico, and Northern Chihuahua, Mexico. Known as the El Paso-Juárez borderland region, the area contains more than three million people spanning 130 miles from east to west. Mike Tapia examines this region by exploring a century of historical developments through a criminological lens and by studying the diverse subcultures on both sides of the law.
-
-
it was ok
- By Carlos A Palomo on 05-31-22
By: Mike Tapia
-
The Red Caddy
- Into the Unknown with Edward Abbey
- By: Charles Bowden
- Narrated by: Brian Troxell
- Length: 3 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A passionate advocate for preserving wilderness and fighting the bureaucratic and business forces that would destroy it, Edward Abbey (1927-1989) wrote fierce, polemical books such as Desert Solitaire and The Monkey Wrench Gang that continue to inspire environmental activists.
-
-
Up Against the Wall! We've come for your dozer!
- By Andrew Caffrey on 05-21-22
By: Charles Bowden
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Gomorrah
- A Personal Journey into the Violent International Empire of Naples' Organized Crime System
- By: Roberto Saviano
- Narrated by: Michael Kramer
- Length: 11 hrs and 20 mins
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A groundbreaking major best seller in Italy, Gomorrah is Roberto Saviano's gripping nonfiction account of the decline of Naples under the rule of the Camorra, an organized crime network with a large international reach and stakes in construction, high fashion, illicit drugs, and toxic-waste disposal. Known by insiders as "the System," the Camorra affects cities and villages along the Neapolitan coast
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Eye Opener
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Combining on-the-ground reporting and in-depth discussions with people on the frontlines of Mexico's drug war, To Die in Mexico tells behind-the-scenes stories that address the causes and consequences of Mexico's multibillion dollar drug trafficking business. John Gibler looks beyond the myths that pervade government and media portrayals of the unprecedented wave of violence now pushing Mexico to the breaking point.
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Warning: you may finish this audiobook outraged.
- By Susie on 07-13-16
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Hellhound on His Trail
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On April 23, 1967, Prisoner #416J, an inmate at the notorious Missouri State Penitentiary, escaped in a breadbox. Fashioning himself Eric Galt, this nondescript thief and con man - whose real name was James Earl Ray -drifted through the South, into Mexico, and then Los Angeles, where he was galvanized by George Wallace's racist presidential campaign. With relentless storytelling drive, Sides follows Galt and King as they crisscross the country, one stalking the other, until the crushing moment at the Lorraine Motel.
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History Comes Alive
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The Fear
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Born in what’s now called Zimbabwe, journalist Peter Godwin returns to his homeland in 2008 after three decades of Robert Mugabe’s brutal economic and human destruction. Hoping to “dance on Mugabe’s political grave” in the wake of the tyrant’s defeat at the polls, Godwin instead risks his life to secretly chronicle Mugabe’s ruthless backlash of torture and terror locals call “The Fear.”
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Read at your own Risk!
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Breaking Blue
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In 1935, the Spokane police regularly extorted sex, food, and money from the reluctant hobos (many of them displaced farmers who had fled the midwestern dust bowls), robbed dairies, and engaged in all manner of nefarious crimes, including murder. This history was suppressed until 1989, when former logger, Vietnam vet, and Spokane cop Tony Bamonte discovered a strange 1955 deathbed confession while researching a thesis on local law enforcement history.
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Excellent! Highly Recommended.
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Brothers of the Gun
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In 2011, Marwan Hisham and his two friends - fellow working-class college students Nael and Tareq - joined the first protests of the Arab Spring in Syria, in response to a recent massacre. Arm in arm they marched, poured Coca-Cola into one another’s eyes to blunt the effects of tear gas, ran from the security forces, and cursed the country’s president, Bashar al-Assad. It was ecstasy. A long-bottled revolution was finally erupting, and freedom from a brutal dictator seemed, at last, imminent.
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Powerful memoir of Syrian war
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Gomorrah
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A groundbreaking major best seller in Italy, Gomorrah is Roberto Saviano's gripping nonfiction account of the decline of Naples under the rule of the Camorra, an organized crime network with a large international reach and stakes in construction, high fashion, illicit drugs, and toxic-waste disposal. Known by insiders as "the System," the Camorra affects cities and villages along the Neapolitan coast
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Eye Opener
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