IRON RIVER
On a dusty highway just north of the United States/Mexico border, a man
named Mike Finnegan is struck by a fast-moving vehicle and flung into
the desert. Miraculously, he survives and winds up in a hospital in the
tiny border town of Buenavista, seemingly in full possession of his
faculties--including the eerie ability to understand events happening
well outside the view from his hospital bed. Charlie Hood joins a Bureau
of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms task force patrolling the "iron
river," where illegal guns flow from United States dealers to the
Mexican drug business. Hood is part of a stakeout team when a federal
officer's bullet kills an innocent boy. The boy happens to be the son of
Benjamin Armenta, head of the Gulf Cartel and one of the most violent
men in the world. Armenta's thirst for vengeance even in routine
business matters is well known. His hired killers are credited with many
of the murders and beheadings of the fifteen thousand people who have
died in the cartel wars along the border in recent years. Hood and ATF
brace themselves for brute vengeance. As this unthinkable violence leaks
from Mexico into the United States, and as Finnegan's predictive powers
become even stranger and stronger, Charlie Hood works to understand the
mysterious forces fighting for control of this tiny border town, forces
that may have the power to slow the iron river--and to save the ATF men
he has come to think of as his brothers.
THE BORDER LORDS
ATF agent Sean Ozburn is deep undercover, supporting the sicarios of the
North Baja Cartel, when he suddenly goes completely dark, leaving
Charlie Hood and the support team from Operation Blowdown with a safe
house full of bodies and no explanation. Sean's only communication in
the following days consists of a series of haunting digital videos sent
to his desperately worried wife, Seliah. As he pieces together evidence
of his friend's strange quest and searches the border landscape,
following faint signals to the man's whereabouts, Charlie Hood must
determine if Oz is simply chasing demons deeper undercover than anyone
has ever gone, or whether his friend has suffered a permanent break with
his mission and his moral compass. A crime novel of unprecedented scope
and unrivaled storytelling ambition, The Border Lords revisits the
fevered landscape of America's southern border -- and confronts the
unexplored depths of humanity's dark soul.
