Narco by Everardo Torrez, Arte Publico Press, $12.95

It would be a mistake to dismiss "Narco," the debut novel by Everardo Torrez, as just another drugs-and-death-along-the-border book.

Yes, both figure prominently, but more important, it serves up a no-holds-barred account of the lives of desperate people trapped in the nightmare of the multibillion-dollar narcotics trade.

Torrez pulls no punches about the people involved in moving the deadly cargo from the interior of Chihuahua state to Juarez from where it would be taken across the border at El Paso. This bunch is as seedy, slimy and sinister as they come. Death means little to them; money and power are everything.

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