Dirty Dealing

Summary

Minutes into this rollicking good story, the central figure, Lee Chagra, comes alive: "[Lee] washed his morning cocaine down with strong coffee and remembered the time he had met Sinatra, how genuine he appeared." Everything you'll need to know and remember about Chagra - the son of Syrian immigrants to Mexico and an attorney who spun the world of dope-running, border-crossing, high-living outlaws along the El Paso-Juarez border around his finger like the gaudy rings he favored - can be neatly summarized in that one sentence. Chagra dies not long after, yet he haunts the rest of this cautionary tale like a high-rolling specter.

©1984, 1998 Gary Cartwright (P)2020 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books