book

Desperados: Latin Drug Lords, U.S. Lawmen, and the War America Can't Win

by Elaine Shannon

Published: 1988

Publisher: Viking (Penguin)

Regions: Mexico, Latin America, United States
DEACamarenacartelsinvestigative journalism

Centered on the Camarena murder but provides a broad picture of drug trafficking across Latin America in the 1980s. New York Times bestseller. Became the basis for Michael Mann’s Emmy-winning NBC miniseries Drug Wars: The Camarena Story (1990). Shannon was a veteran Time/Newsweek correspondent.