The true story of two American teenagers turned cartel assassins—and the Mexican American detective who fought to stop them. Wolf Boys is “a hell of a story…undeniably gripping” (The New York Times), a harrowing nonfiction thriller that reads like a crime novel but is rooted in extraordinary investigative reporting.
Journalist Dan Slater tells the unforgettable tale of Gabriel Cardona, a bright and promising Laredo, Texas, teenager who becomes one of the youngest hitmen for Los Zetas, Mexico’s most violent drug cartel. Lured by power, money, and survival in a border town overrun with smuggling and gang warfare, Gabriel joins a network of juvenile recruits tasked with carrying out executions on both sides of the US–Mexico border.
As cartel warfare spills into Texas, the story collides with that of Detective Robert Garcia, a Mexican-born homicide investigator who has dedicated his life to keeping cartel violence out of the United States.
With chilling precision and emotional depth, Wolf Boys exposes how teens become soldiers in a global drug war, and how law enforcement, outmatched and outgunned, is forced to confront a rising wave of youth-led organized crime.
At once intimate and explosive, Wolf Boys is a devastating account of the real-life consequences of America’s war on drugs—and the price paid by its youngest victims.
"The truth is stranger than fiction and sometimes it's much more harrowing. Wolf Boys is one of those times. Dan Slater has put together a riveting story that takes us on an unforgettable descent into the dark heart of the drug trade."—Michael Connelly
“A hell of a story… undeniably gripping.”—The New York Times Book Review
"Wolf Boys is a rare book that reads like a thriller without aiming to be one. What Dan Slater does intend for it to be—and what he powerfully succeeds in creating—is an intimate, horrifying journey through a war we know is close and intractable, a war we willfully ignore with the faith that a river and a wall keeps its brutality at bay. With courageous detail and unforgettable characters, Slater will bring you not only to refute such faith, but to feel for the marginalized Americans on both sides of the conflict.”—Jeff Hobbs, author of The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace
“Wolf Boys should be required reading, especially for anyone who supports the blood-chilling, appalling trade in illegal drugs.”—Chuck Palahniuk, author of Fight Club
