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Friday, July 23, 2010

Review: The Daughters of Juarez

The Daughters of Juarez: A True Story of Serial Murder South of the Border

Synopsis from Amazon:
For more than twelve years, the city of Juárez, Mexico -- just across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas -- has been the center of a horrific crime wave against women and girls. Consisting of kidnappings, rape, mutilation, and murder, most of the atrocities have involved young, slender, and poor victims -- fueling the premise that the murders are not random. As for who is behind the crimes themselves, the answer remains unknown -- though many have speculated that the killers are American citizens, and others have argued that the killings have become a sort of blood sport due to the lawlessness of the city itself. And despite numerous arrests over the last ten years, the murders continue to occur, with the killers growing bolder, dumping bodies in the city itself rather than on the outskirts of town, as was initially the case, indicating a possible growing and most alarming alliance of silence and cover-up by Mexican politicians.

My review:
I picked this book up from a book store because it was on sale. (I'm a sucker for cheap books!)   This book really shocked me.  For years young women have been disappearing from Juarez Mexico, and some of them have been showing up murdered.  I was astounded when I read the number of murders: about 400 in ten years.  Despite the number, officials weren't doing anything about it.  The families of the missing women would go to the police to report them missing and most (if not all) were told that their daughters probably took off with a boyfriend.  What really got to me most about this book is how corrupt the officials in Mexico were.  They arrested several suspects, and tried them for some of the murders, despite having no solid evidence.  This book was well researched and put together.  The author is a journalist and did many interviews with the people of Juarez, including family members of murdered girls and some of the suspects in prison.  If you like true crime, you would like this book.  I really liked that it didn't go into a lot of detail regarding the murders.

3 comments:

  1. Stopping by from the hop! This book looks interesting and brings to light a disturbing crime wave.

    By the way, I'm also a sucker for the bargain table.

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  2. Wow, this book sounds fascinating. I love it when books introduce us to subjects we wouldn't have otherwise known anything about. Greta review.

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