People have asked
me about the Mexican part of To Beat the
Devil. I spent most summers in the ‘70s, ‘80s & early ‘90s in Tijuana,
Mexico, with road trips to La Paz, at the end of the Baja peninsula. I
witnessed the gradual change as the drug cartels began in-fighting and Tijuana,
and Baja, became the battleground between these drug gangs.
I chose Tampico,
Mexico as the location because of its location to the Gulf of Mexico and it is
a major port, close to Texas and has a Mexican Navy base. The corruption
throughout Mexican military and politicians is well known and documented. In
most cases, the Mexican Navy Special Forces have captured or killed reputed
cartel bosses. It appears to be working more closely with American intelligence
and DEA in the battle to stop the cartels. The head of the Mexican task force
fight the cartel, working out of the Mexican president’s office, was arrested
for leaking information to the cartels.
While my fictitious
battle by the lake outside the city limits was totally made up, attacks as I describe
have happened many times in Mexico. The things Pauly reveals about his days
with the cartel are documented as fact in news stories.
The Mexican drug
cartels behead more victims than Muslim terrorists. Also, more journalists are
killed in Mexico than in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is a dangerous place. So
dangerous that in 2009 when I was signing Chasin’
the Wind, my friends in Tijuana told me not to come. Even today, after the
once powerful local cartel leaders in Baja have been jailed or killed, they
have told me not to come. I spent almost 28 summers in Tijuana and La Paz with
my twin daughters. The people are wonderful, the food is great and the
countryside is beautiful.
The Los Angeles
Times has been running a series for years on the Mexican drug war and after
moving to Key West, I kept up with it. Google Mexico Under Siege or find the stories on the Times’ website, to
see for yourself.
While I made up
the battle, drug czars, and Mick Murphy’s escape, the background is taken from
daily facts. It is happening, worse in some cases, today. So yes, it’s fiction,
based on fact. It is a major concern of Homeland Security that the cartel may
use, if it isn’t already, its drug smuggling routes into the USA to sneak in
terrorists.
It is also well
established in the intelligence community that Iran uses Muslin terrorists for
its own purposes. Think of the bombing that was supposed to kill the Saudi
Ambassador in D.C. The plotters were paid by the Iranians. It’s all in the
daily news and I just collected the facts and put them all together to make an
interesting story.
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If you haven't checked out the Mystery Writers Key West Fest, scheduled for June 13 & 14, you should. www.mysterywriterskeywestfest.com
See you in Key West!
