With his debut novel on legendary Texas outlaw John Wesley Hardin, The
Pistoleer, James Carlos Blake demonstrated a rare talent for western
and historical fiction. His second book, The Friends of Pancho Villa,
now back in print, further proved his mastery in the genre, taking on an
even mightier figure of North American legend--the most memorable leader
of the Mexican Revolution.
Violently waged from 1910 to 1920, the revolution profoundly transformed
Mexican government and culture. And Pancho Villa was its "incarnation
and its eagle of a soul"--so says Rodolfo Fierro, the novel's narrator,
an ex-con, train robber, and Villa's loyal friend. Killers of men and
lovers of life, the revolutionaries fought for freedom, for a new
Mexico, for Villa. And in return, they shared victory and death with
their country's most powerful hero. The Friends of Pancho Villa is a
masterpiece of ferocious loyalty, bloody revolution, and legends that
live forever.