rosemarygrace1211's review
This book is remarkably well researched, but the organisation is... not great. Nothing is laid out linearly and there's no real structure. It's so confusing that I could not tell you what happened during the massacre, because we bounce around in multiple points in time with no real purpose.
leighkhoopes's review
4.0
This isn’t really a book you can —or even should— give a “rating” to. Its not “true crime,” but instead a major exposé of corruption, murder, conspiracy that the rest of the world forgot within a matter of months. It’s an exhaustive, extensively researched and reported account of a truly terrifying set of events and the even more disturbing systemic cover-up from literally the highest levels of the Mexican government.
I remember hearing about this initial event years ago on the news and then intermittently afterwards, so the sheer scope of what actually happened and was subsequently covered up is shocking, but also (again) unsurprising. The author’s journalistic skill and passion is undeniable, but many portions of the book feel repetitive in the interest of maintaining clarity, and others feel like an endless list of names — victims, witnesses, politicians, police officers, soldiers, bureaucrats, civilians — but again this is a testament to the extreme scale of the entire situation at every level.
It is not a pleasant account, and I did struggle through many parts, but it is an important and the author should be commended for her work in bringing together so many disparate, conflicting and outright false narratives. Her reconstruction of the events hopefully helps bring a sense of justice to the victims’ families and those on whom the crimes were pinned with no evidence, and it’s incredibly disappointing (but also telling) that her years of work on uncovering the truth has not received much recognition.
I remember hearing about this initial event years ago on the news and then intermittently afterwards, so the sheer scope of what actually happened and was subsequently covered up is shocking, but also (again) unsurprising. The author’s journalistic skill and passion is undeniable, but many portions of the book feel repetitive in the interest of maintaining clarity, and others feel like an endless list of names — victims, witnesses, politicians, police officers, soldiers, bureaucrats, civilians — but again this is a testament to the extreme scale of the entire situation at every level.
It is not a pleasant account, and I did struggle through many parts, but it is an important and the author should be commended for her work in bringing together so many disparate, conflicting and outright false narratives. Her reconstruction of the events hopefully helps bring a sense of justice to the victims’ families and those on whom the crimes were pinned with no evidence, and it’s incredibly disappointing (but also telling) that her years of work on uncovering the truth has not received much recognition.
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