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In 2011, corrupt Mexican police and cartel members murdered Javier Sicilia's son and six others. In the aftermath, Sicilia — a journalist for 

 magazine — published an open letter headlined "

" (We've had it up to here), launched a peace initiative and demanded government reform. 

, according to Reporters Without Borders. 

 of Mexican women and students disappeared during this time of intense turmoil in Mexico. This year, on the 11th anniversary of his son's murder, Sicilia lamented the lack of reform, writing that "

But Katherine Corcoran has plenty to say, in her epic new book 

, a deeply reported and riveting account of Regina Martinez's murder.

what Corcoran has uncovered shows how broken Mexican society is. But paradoxically, her reporting also reveals the best of Mexico — the courage and integrity of Mexican journalists, the resilience of citizens determined to find justice where the rule of law is itself hostage, and the love of family and country that unifies the Mexican people.

Martinez, who was born in 1963, was a veteran journalist and crime reporter for

, known for investigative journalism and its focus on politics and social issues. Direct, unflinching, outspoken — these are the traits that led to Martinez's murder for reporting on government corruption, human rights abuses, and the relationships between government and organized crime in the Mexican state of Veracruz.

The Veracruz government quickly claimed to resolve the murder with the arrest of a suspect, but the accused said his confession was coerced. Martinez's colleagues were 

 of the government's handling of the case — which discounted

her reporting as a motive for her murder and included testimony from dead eyewitnesses — and conducted an

Corcoran, a former Mexico City bureau chief for The Associated Press, traveled throughout Mexico while researching 

met with reporters that Martinez had mentored and followed various leads at great personal risk to identify Martinez's killer. 

In gripping detail, the book documents the existential gaslight that passes for institutional credibility in Mexico and the U.S.: the serial cover-ups, criminal bureaucrats, red tape, torture, the money trail to U.S. banks and race tracks, the deadly sweet spot where the private sector, the state and organized crime intersect.

Mexican journalists work in a setting of rampant criminal violence and impunity coupled with the active subversion of civic institutions, according to a

 from the Committee to Protect Journalists, Reporters Without Borders and Free Press Unlimited. 

Corcoran's reporting illuminates these statistics, revealing details of perfidy and courage, such as the time a reporter woke up in his Mexico City hotel room to find that overnight, a mysterious box of chocolates had been placed in the dresser drawer where he kept his reporter notepads. (He kept reporting and ate the chocolates.) 

In the end, Corcoran's closing thesis on the who, what and why of Martinez's murder not only makes sense, it also highlights threats to freedom of the press in the U.S. and hints at American complicity in Mexico's crisis. 

The latter includes American intervention in Mexican domestic affairs, the laundering capacity of American banks, the sales reports of American gun exports to Mexico and the U.S. consumer market for illegal drugs. Corcoran's next book should follow the money north. 

Arts and Culture

The Thread® - Books and Literary News

Marcela Davison Avilés

Author

Since 2000, more than 150 journalists have been killed in Mexico. Among them is Regina Martinez, a veteran journalist reporting on government corruption and human rights abuses in Veracruz state. 

'In the Mouth of the Wolf' examines the murder of a Mexican investigative reporter

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