Chilling and nuanced ... The author’s search for answers leads her into a hall of mirrors ... I will not give away where all this leads, other than to say that in nonfiction the journey can be more important than the ending. Those of us raised on detective novels, TV shows and movies want stories with a satisfying conclusion, something rare in real life. She is a fine and honest writer, a dogged reporter, and her story paints a dystopian portrait of our southern neighbor ... Corcoran is recording a tragedy far more sweeping, and perhaps familiar, than the death of Regina Martínez, which is awful enough.
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 ... Gripping.
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 ... Corcoran’s vivid account is based on hundreds of interviews she conducted in Mexico over seven years. Despite the lack of a satisfying resolution, this succeeds both as an homage to the heroic Martínez and as a gripping real-life whodunit.
Disturbing ... Readers will be transfixed by this alarming narrative, all the more timely as free speech, even in the U.S., is under attack yet again ... A tenaciously researched work of investigative journalism.
