тАЬA deeply reported, razor smart, up-close account of the Great Drug War┬а.┬а.┬а. Absolutely courageous in its fairness and search for answers.тАЭ тАФWilliam Booth, Washington Post Bureau Chief for Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean
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The city of Ju├бrez is ground zero for the drug war that is raging across Mexico and has claimed close to 60,000 lives since 2007. Almost a quarter of the federal forces that former President Felipe Calder├│n deployed in the war were sent to Ju├бrez, and nearly twenty percent of the countryтАЩs drug-related executions have taken place in the city, a city that can be as unforgiving as the hardest places on earth. It is here that the Mexican government came to turn the tide. Whatever happens in Ju├бrez will have lasting repercussions for both Mexico and the United States.
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Ricardo Ainslie went to Ju├бrez to try to understand what was taking place behind the headlines of cartel executions and other acts of horrific brutality. In The Fight to Save Ju├бrez, he takes us into the heart of MexicoтАЩs bloodiest city through the lives of four people who experienced the drug war from very different perspectivesтАФMayor Jos├й Reyes Ferriz, a mid-level cartel playerтАЩs mistress, a human rights activist, and a photojournalist. Ainslie also interviewed top Mexican government strategists, including members of Calder├│nтАЩs security cabinet, as well as individuals within US law enforcement. The dual perspective of life on the ground in the drug war and the тАЬbig pictureтАЭ views of officials who are responsible for the warтАЩs strategy, creates a powerful, intimate portrait of an embattled city, its people, and the efforts to rescue Ju├бrez from the abyss.