Murder City: Ciudad Juarez and the Global Economy's New Killing Fields - Softcover

Ciudad Juárez lies just across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas. A once-thriving border town, it now resembles a failed state. Infamously known as the place where women disappear, its murder rate exceeds that of Baghdad or Mogadishu. In Murder City , Charles Bowden has written an extraordinary account of what happens when a city disintegrates. Interweaving stories of its inhabitants- a raped beauty queen, a repentant hit man, a journalist fleeing for his life- with a broader meditation on the town's descent into anarchy, Bowden reveals how Juárez's culture of violence will not only worsen but inevitably spread north.

Charles Bowden is a contributing editor for GQ and Mother Jones; he also writes for Harper's, the New York Times Book Review, and Esquire. He lives in Tucson, Arizona.