With conversational prose and audacious reporting, [Grillo] etches brisk vignettes of A.T.F. agents, gunrunners, hit men and straw purchasers, switching among more characters and exotic locales than an international thriller.” —The New York Times Book Review
“Traces the drug-gun pipeline that runs straight from that violence to the beating heart of America. Even weirder and bloodier than the fiction.” —Don Winslow, author of THE CARTEL and THE BORDER
“A convincing case for legislative reform ... with on-the-ground insight into the far corners of the gun trade and its illicit shadow worlds ... An impactful book that will drive readers forward to the desperate conclusion.” —CrimeReads, Best True Crime Books of 2021
“Well-researched, well-written, and informative book.” —Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR)
“Grillo approaches the issue of proliferating firearms from myriad angles. . . . [He] brings more than two decades of intimate experience to the task, much of that spent in Mexico covering the impact of the 'iron river' of firearms that flows south from America into the hands of drug cartels and remorseless gangsters.” —USA Today
“Expertly maps the grisly North American landscape for firearms.” —Nick Miroff, The Washington Post
“Cuts to the chase in its multifaceted portrayal of an enduring battle. . . . an even-handed portrayal of the often frustrating pervasiveness of the gun traffic, interviewing scores of individuals who are on both sides. Investigative Journalism has never felt so palpably poignant.” —City Book Review
“[A] shocking, arresting account of gun trafficking.” —National Book Review
“An alarming and deeply reported account of how the U.S. gun trade fuels bloodshed, terror, and refugee crises throughout the Western hemisphere . . . This expert account makes the high cost of America's thirst for guns crystal clear.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review
“A fresh perspective on an issue that has significant domestic and international ramifications.” —Bookbrowse
“Written in a gripping narrative style and with details gleaned from firsthand reporting, Ioan Grillo has written a vitally important book about the 'iron river.'” —Jon Lee Anderson, author of CHE GUEVARA
“While Americans fear mass shootings, Ioan Grillo's fascinating and well-researched book shows that gun trafficking is the most important gun issue of our time.” —Adam Winkler, author of GUNFIGHT
“Ioan Grillo is one of the bravest and most thoughtful journalists in the world. If you want to know what's really going on, you have to read him-and especially this excellent book.” —Johann Hari, author of CHASING THE SCREAM
“A globe-trotting investigation into the symbiotic worlds of the gun trade and organized crime, mostly involving drugs-one terrifying, amazing, illuminating story after another, and characters who dismay, chill, awe and sometimes even inspire. Reaching the end of this utterly absorbing journey, you'll feel like you've learned secrets and truths of the tragic lethal mayhem of the world, of its intractable causes and complexities.” —Francisco Goldman, author of THE ART OF POLITICAL MURDER
“Gripping. The definitive story of how, for decades, hundreds of thousands of firearms bought legally in the United States have been smuggled into Mexico and fueled unspeakable violence.” —León Krauze, Univision
“A haunting investigation into one of humanity's most urgent battles. Both heartbreaking and impossible to put down.” —Matthew Heinemann, Director of the Oscar-nominated Cartel Land and A Private War
“Magnificent. A must read for anyone interested in the river of lead that drives the global illicit economy.” —Alejandro Hope, Security Analyst, El Universal
“A striking report on the fanatical promotion of guns' enormous, painful consequences in the U.S., Mexico and Latin America.” —Temoris Grecko, author of KILLING THE STORY
“A finger of truth pointing North from the Mexican border, showing how the gun, so beloved by American libertarians and lobbyists, has sown death and destruction South of the border. Grillo isn't just a brilliant writer. He's a modern Dante.” —Iain Overton, author of GUN BABY GUN and Executive Director of Action on Armed Violence
“Combines academic rigor with street smarts to take us on a journey around the globe to meet obscure firearm manufacturers, hitmen pulling the trigger, and the many people on the receiving end of gunfire.” —Jorge Valencia, The World
“Reveals the uncomfortable truths very well covered by governments, tracing a map from the U.S. to the Mexican, Central American and even South American cartels.” —AL DÍA
“Gripping ... This important book helps fill a void. It illuminates the need to disrupt the black market in guns flowing to the cartels and to violent criminals on our own streets.” —Clarion-Ledger and Hattiesburg American
“A cutting-edge expose . . . highly informative.” —Small Wars Journal
★ 12/07/2020
Journalist Grillo (Gangster Warlords) delivers an alarming and deeply reported account of how the U.S. gun trade fuels bloodshed, terror, and refugee crises throughout the Western hemisphere. Noting that North and South America contain 47 of the 50 cities with the highest murder rates in the world, Grillo documents how weapons flow in an “iron river” from the legal gun industry to the black market through theft, straw purchases, and private sales (which don’t require background checks in the U.S.). He interviews ATF agents and Central American refugees fleeing gun violence, tracks assault rifles seized in a raid on a Mexican drug cartel to a weapons factory in Romania, interviews a black-market gun dealer who sells to neighborhood drug crews in Baltimore, sketches the history of the Kalashnikov rifle, and analyzes the cultural divide in the U.S. over gun control. Each piece of the puzzle comes together to illustrate the book’s key takeaway: “The United States churns out millions of guns” but has “relatively strong law enforcement that keeps organized crime in check”; meanwhile, “Latin America receives the flow of guns... and drowns in blood.” This expert account makes the high cost of America’s thirst for guns crystal clear. Agent: Katherine Fausset, Curtis Brown. (Feb.)
★ 2020-11-27
An eye-opening investigation of the relationship among gun violence and the drug and arms trades, all closely connected.
British journalist Grillo, who has worked the Latin America beat for more than two decades, begins with the trial of “El Chapo” Guzmán, who was extradited to New York to stand trial for running narcotics into the U.S.—$14 billion worth, by prosecutorial claim. Yet, as the author shows, Guzmán was more than a mere drug lord: “He would be seen as a war criminal if it were to be understood as a war.” The weapons that he bought and sold formed a large branch of the “iron river” that flows between the legal and illegal arms trades, a river defended by the National Rifle Association and Second Amendment fundamentalists everywhere even while enriching people like Guzmán. In this lively and incisive report, the author demonstrates that even as guns overrun the U.S., at least there are some checks on crime; most Latin American governments “cannot contain the gun-toting gangsters.” The author, a diligent and courageous investigator, traces the vehemence of some of these gun supporters to a larger anti-government ethos—e.g., biker gangs such as the Mongols are at war with both law enforcement and the Mexican Mafia. Drug runners are not always killers, Grillo notes; looking closely at Baltimore street gangs, he observes that “a small hardcore group is behind most of the bloodshed.” The real bad guys are political operatives and dealers, such as the Reagan administration officials who supplied the Salvadoran army with more than 260,000 hand grenades that now turn up in turf wars, 300 thrown in a single 2010 intergang battle in Mexico alone. Legalizing some drugs and tightening controls on gun sales, notes the author, will lessen the violence but won’t contain it all: “Claiming we can abolish the entire drug trade through enforcement is an unhelpful fantasy.”
Vigorous on-the-ground reporting and a big-picture view combine to make this a jarring portrait of clear and present danger.
