This suspenseful true story of a drug cartel hitman who got away with
murder after murder in California's Central Valley over three decades
reveals how the criminal justice system fails our most vulnerable
immigrant communities.
On the surface, fifty-eight-year-old Jose Martinez didn't seem evil or
even that remarkable--just a regular neighbor, good with cars and
devoted to his family. But in between taking his children to Disneyland
and visiting his mom, Martinez was also one of the most skilled
professional killers police had ever seen.
He tracked one victim to one of the wealthiest corners of America, a
horse ranch in Santa Barbara, and shot him dead in the morning sunlight,
setting off a decades-long manhunt. He shot another man, a farmworker,
right in front of his young wife as they drove to work in the fields.
The widow would wait decades for justice. Those were murders for hire.
Others he killed for vengeance.
How did Martinez manage to evade law enforcement for so long with little
more than a slap on the wrist? Because he understood a dark truth about
the criminal justice system: if you kill the "right people"--people who
are poor, who aren't white, and who don't have anyone to speak up for
them--you can get away with it.
Melding the pacing and suspense of a true crime thriller with the rigor
of top-notch investigative journalism, The Devil's Harvest follows
award-winning reporter Jessica Garrison's relentless search for the
truth as she traces the life of this assassin, the cops who were always
a few steps behind him, and the families of his many victims. Drawing
upon decades of case files, interrogation transcripts, on-the-ground
reporting, and Martinez's chilling handwritten journals, The Devil's
Harvest uses a gripping and often shocking narrative to dig into one of
the most important moral questions haunting our politically divided
nation today: Why do some deaths--and some lives--matter more than
others?
"Meticulously researched and tightly woven, The Devil's Harvest is an
important story because it tells us that if [this] can happen in one
place, then it can happen in any place. And that's damn scary."
--Michael Connelly, New York Times bestselling author of The
Closers, The Lincoln Lawyer, and The Night Fire
