This Is for the Mara Salvatrucha: Inside the MS-13, America's Most Violent Gang

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From Publishers Weekly Using all of the tools of a capable police investigation, Logan, a journalist based in Latin America, connects the fortunes of Brenda Paz, a Honduran-American teenager, with the ultraviolent Mara Salvatrucha gang. After family difficulties led Paz's father to send her to Texas to live with her uncle, she witnessed a friend's murder by her boyfriend, the leader of the local MS-13 gang, and fled to Virginia following her boyfriend's arrest. Logan probes the secretive Mara Salvatrucha, which funds its illegal activities through extortion, kidnapping, prostitution, drugs and theft, causing the FBI to label it the most dangerous of all criminal outfits. Eventually Paz informs on the gang about the national leadership and crimes, and the Feds unwisely stash the restless teenager in the witness protection program. Placing the reader in the midst of this story with harrowing detail, Logan writes of a young life wasted and an evil crime empire. (July) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Read more About the Author Samuel Logan is an investigative reporter based in Latin America. For the past 3 years, he has reported on gang activity across the U.S. and central America. Originally from New Orleans, he lives in Brazil with his wife and daughter. Read more