In the Mouth of the Wolf
A Murder, a Cover-Up, and the True Cost of Silencing the Press
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- $18.99
Publisher Description
Shortlisted for the Juan E. Mendez Book Award for Human Rights in Latin America
"Chilling and nuanced … a murder mystery but also, more important, a portrait of a nation where no one knows what to believe, or whom to trust."--Mark Bowden, The New York Times Book Review
"Epic ... deeply reported and riveting."--NPR Online
Former AP Mexico bureau chief Katherine Corcoran's pulsating investigation into the murder of a legendary woman journalist on the verge of exposing government corruption in Mexico.
Regina Martínez was no stranger to retaliation. A journalist out of Mexico's Gulf Coast state of Veracruz, Regina's stories for the magazine Proceso laid out the corruption and abuse underlying Mexican politics. She was barred from press conferences, and copies of Proceso often disappeared before they made the newsstands. In 2012, shortly after Proceso published an article on corruption and two Veracruz politicians, and the magazine went missing once again, she was bludgeoned to death in her bathroom. The message was clear: No journalist in Mexico was safe.
Katherine Corcoran, then leading the Associated Press coverage of Mexico, admired Regina Martínez's work. Troubled by the news of her death, Corcoran journeyed to Veracruz to find out what had happened. Regina hadn't even written the controversial article. But did she have something else that someone didn't want published? Once there, Katherine bonded with four of Regina's grief-stricken mentees, each desperate to prove who was to blame for the death of their friend. Together they battled cover-ups, narco-officials, red tape, and threats to sift through the mess of lies-and discover what got Regina killed.
A gripping look at reporters who dare to step on the deadly "third rail," where the state and organized crime have become indistinguishable, In the Mouth of the Wolf confronts how silencing the free press threatens basic protections and rule of law across the globe.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Former Associated Press bureau chief Katherine Corcoran brings an investigative reporter’s eye to this chilling true-crime story. Corcoran starts well before the murder of Mexican journalist Regina Martínez in 2012, laying out the bloody history of the infamous Mexican drug cartels’ targeting of journalists. Both fascinating and horrifying, In the Mouth of the Wolf exposes decades of corrupt politicians and law enforcement who allow this violence to take place, relying on a grim survival tactic known as plato o plomo, “the silver or the lead”: take the money or take the bullet. Corcoran checks in with Martinez’s neighbors, colleagues, and closest confidants, giving us a chilling understanding of the threats she faced and the threats to the freedom of the press. It’s a compelling read.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Corcoran, the former Associated Press bureau chief for Mexico and Central America, debuts with a searing look at the unsolved 2012 murder of Regina Martínez, an investigative reporter for the Mexican magazine Proceso. Martínez was discovered beaten to death in her bathroom in the capital city of the state of Veracruz. Martínez's targets had included influential politicians, such as Fidel Herrera, the former Veracruz governor, whom she'd linked to the misuse of state funds and organized crime. She persisted in her digging, despite Veracruz's history as an extremely dangerous place for journalists. The number of powerful enemies she made led her colleagues to suspect that one of them, possibly Herrera, was responsible for the killing. Corcoran's own reporting discredits the official story that the murder was a crime of passion and that a petty criminal, El Silva, arrested a few months after the killing, was responsible; her analysis makes it clear that El Silva, who confessed under torture, was just a patsy. Corcoran's vivid account is based on hundreds of interviews she conducted in Mexico over seven years. Despite the lack of a satisfying resolution, this succeeds both as an homage to the heroic Martínez and as a gripping real-life whodunit.