Bandit Roads
Into the Lawless Heart of Mexico
-
-
4.5 • 4 Ratings
-
-
- £3.99
-
- £3.99
Publisher Description
There are many ways to die in the Sierra Madre, a notorious nine-hundred-mile mountain range in northern Mexico where AK-47s are fetish objects, the law is almost non-existent and power lies in the hands of brutal drug mafias. Thousands of tons of opium and marijuana are produced there every year. Richard Grant thought it would be a good idea to travel the length of the Sierra Madre and write a book about it.
He was warned before he left that he would be killed. But driven by what he calls 'an unfortunate fascination' for this mysterious region, Grant sets off anyway. In a remarkable piece of investigative writing, he evokes a sinister, surreal landscape of lonely mesas, canyons sometimes deeper than the Grand Canyon, hostile villages and an outlaw culture where homicide is the most common cause of death and grandmothers sell cocaine. Finally his luck runs out and he finds himself fleeing for his life, pursued by men who would murder a stranger in their territory 'to please the trigger finger'.
Customer Reviews
What a wild ride
There is something very appealing about a travel writer who enjoys people and life so much that he puts his own life on the line, just to write about it. In this case, a place that locals won't even go. The Mexican Sierra Madre. Or, maybe he had a death wish when he went up there. Who knows! But I'm glad he did. This has become one of my all-time favourite books.
I was in the Sierra Madre around the same time as Richard Grant, but with 26 other people on a bus, journeying to Copper Canyon. We had been warned! Richard Grant's humour seems to be a truly decent human being, who views everybody with the same levels of compassion, fairness and wit. Except when he's being chased through the forest at night, by two lunatic drug dealers, running for his life. As fast as he was running, I was laughing as hard. I can't wait to see the screenplay, and await your fourth book with glee!