Chilling and nuanced.

Katherine Corcoran has plenty to say, in her epic new book In the Mouth of the Wolf, a deeply reported and riveting account of Regina Martinez's murder.

Into a mess of stories and theories, and still under threat of surveillance and violence years later, steps Corcoran, with archival research and hundreds of interviews with a dizzying cast of characters (helpfully listed in the front of the book) from the media, politics, organized crime, and Martínez's family and friends. She brings a journalist's careful accounting of where truth meets speculation, where the author has chosen between versions of the same story, where corroboration has been impossible. In the Mouth of the Wolf offers the results of this research, numerous unconfirmed theories and the personal story of a journalist chasing an elusive truth. By its finish, Corcoran has become alarmed by the state of the free press in the United States as well as in Mexico, and concludes that Martínez's unsolved murder--and so many like it--have chilling effects not only on the freedom of the press but on society itself, all over the world. This compelling, carefully researched investigation is a sobering clarion call. --.

Corcoran’s detailing of recent Mexican history provides crucial understanding of the environment she, her sources, and local journalists are operating under. She also injects a strong sense of place and fear into this copiously detailed, compelling true-crime tale..

Searing.

Disturbing.