Down by the River: Drugs, Money, Murder, and Family [Paperback]

Charles Bowden (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 30, 2003

Lionel Bruno Jordan was murdered on January 20, 1995, in an El Paso parking lot, but he keeps coming back as the key to a multibillion-dollar drug industry, two corrupt governments -- one called the United States and the other Mexico -- and a self-styled War on Drugs that is a fraud. Beneath all the policy statements and bluster of politicians is a real world of lies, pain, and big money. Down by the River is the true narrative of how a murder led one American family into this world and how it all but destroyed them. It is the story of how one Mexican drug leader outfought and outthought the U.S. government, of how major financial institutions were fattened on the drug industry, and how the governments of the U.S. and Mexico buried everything that happened. All this happens down by the river, where the public fictions finally end and the facts read like fiction. This is a remarkable American story about drugs, money, murder, and family.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In January 1995, Lionel Bruno Jordan was shot dead in the parking lot of an El Paso, Tex., K-Mart. A police investigation concluded that it was a botched carjacking; a 13-year-old Mexican was charged and convicted. Bruno's brother Phil, a rising DEA official, suspected the murder had to do with his drug- busting work, but his attempts to get the agency to investigate were blocked at every turn. Exploring this mystery, prize-winning author Bowden weaves an intricate tale of treachery, deceit, corruption and death on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. The Mexican government was implicated in the drug trade all the way up to the office of then-president Carlos Salinas, and Bowden talks with former Mexican officials who fled to the U.S. to avoid being killed off. Phil Jordan was drawn into a life of casino gambling in a vain attempt to raise enough money to pay off Mexican officials and get them to talk. Bowden also tracks the exploits of Mexican drug lord Amado Carrillo, based right across the border from El Paso in Ju rez, who more than likely ordered a hit on Bruno. Bowden maintains an intense noirish tension throughout, though some may find his use of interior monologue irritating at times (particularly when he puts the reader inside the mind of the dead man, Bruno). Still, that doesn't mar a dramatic detective story and a biting critique of the U.S. war on drugs.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Journalist Bowden uses a 1995 drug-related murder case (the reputed hit man was 13 years old) to explicate the drug war in this country and beyond.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 464 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster (December 30, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743244575
• ISBN-13: 978-0743244572
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.7 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (33 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #83,615 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

38 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An Eye-Opener, November 13, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Down by the River : Drugs, Money, Murder, and Family (Hardcover)

I've been somewhat aware of the corruptive influence that drugs has had on our society, but this book really opened my eyes. And it makes sense the way Mr. Bowden describes it.

In many ways the story sums up the struggle anyone has with senseless tragedy: the search for meaning and understanding, and how sometimes there is none. This is a story of a family in the cross hairs of several cultures and how those cultural expectations destroyed several of its members.

It is also the story of another family, that of the boy accused of the shooting. Amidst the violence and the massive corruption, the reader is led along a parallel path of two families and how a shooting in a parking lot changed so many lives.

I was able to put myself in the place of the people in the book, hoping and searching with them for answers. The many names grew confusing at times, but Mr. Bowden successfully reminded the reader of the role each person had earlier on in the story. From time to time it was necessary to put the book down and absorb the ramifications of what I had just read.

This book is heartily recommended.

30 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Evidence for Failure, December 5, 2003

By 

"none90987" (Colville, WA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Down by the River : Drugs, Money, Murder, and Family (Hardcover)

Many different worlds collide in the dusty, sprawling metropolis of El Paso/Juarez, igniting a culture of chaos. This conflagration is fueled to levels of heroic proportions by economic opportunity. The biggest opportunities arise from the official American goals of stopping the illegal drug trade, the so-called War on Drugs.

Profits previously unimaginable are within reach for the daring in a black market created by drug prohibition laws. Consequently, 'greed' violently governs lives on both sides of the border with the protection, or camouflage, of law enforcement and government on both sides of the border. In "Down by the River," Charles Bowden investigates and records for history a collage of bizarre events at the frontlines of a war that can never be won.

I'm from El Paso. I have encouraged people for many years to open their minds to the murderous results of this war on drugs-but with limited success and much frustration at times. Now others can and do comment readily to me because this eye-popping book is now available as credible social research. Charles Bowden has provided us with facts, names, dates, researchable footnotes, and irrefutable grounds to support what we already know and feel.

Most everyone around here remembers the sad story of the Jordan family, around whom the book centers. Many people agree with Phillip Jordan, the eldest brother of this local family, who believes his youngest brother Bruno was killed with an Uzi in a carjacking as a warning from the Juarez cartel to 'back off.'

Was this a nasty hint for Phil to drop his announced plans to increase DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) success in his hometown? Anyone who has heard the story has an opinion similar to mine, and, in my opinion, it was a dire warning. His brother's murder occurred as Phillip Jordan was in the process of filling his promotion with the DEA to head the El Paso Intelligence Center, or EPIC.

Seeing in print the details of local daily newspaper stories supported with what I've only heard in whispers is at the same time affirming yet even more frightening. With so much documentation available to so many, why aren't we approaching these issues with more realism? Why are so many people paying so dearly with their lives or time in prison?

The borderland that surrounds the Rio Grande is like a test tube for corruption. What happens here can happen anywhere if left unchecked. We cannot continue on our current path and expect to achieve any success, nor can we abruptly legalize the most popular illegal drugs without major global repercussions. We need to see the truth and deal with it.

According to Bowden, pragmatic patriotism may be at the heart of many of the sophisticated and driven businessmen, narcocorridos, when they employ thousands and build roads, churches, schools and more. Ironically, here in the United States public funds continue to be routed away from education and public health and towards law enforcement and harsher punishments. Our leaders must be plagued with self-protective amnesia or hysterical blindness to allow a system of honor and integrity to be replaced with practices of conspiracy and deceit. The snitch culture of coercion and lies, undercover agents, and entrapment prevalent in our law enforcement and judicial system today is a far cry from "protect and serve" slogans of most police departments.

The drug economy has grown so powerful that human lives are often a business expense, where torture and murder are 'business tools.' Drugs represent 20% of the American economy and over 60% of the Mexican economy, tying the hands of presidents, law enforcement, and politicians to payoffs and bank transactions of unprecedented scale. Who can dispute that when an entire nation depends on a profitable enterprise, legal or not, there will be no real effort to curb it? In "Down by the River" Bowden introduces policy makers and US operatives who know and accept this reality. The balance of blood lost in this clash of public policy and real life is monumental.

Relentlessly, Charles Bowden compels the reader to see the true colors of the growing economic force of a global black market. He took great personal risks to be involved within the shadowy collision of trafficking and enforcement groups. To then publish a documentary illuminating the bloody reality of a 30-year war is unparalleled journalism.
"Down by the River" may be a difficult book to read for some, yet Bowden's unyielding prose hammers out new consciousness, making it difficult to put down. He captures the diversity of the Mexican/US borderland with all its contradictions and magic in lustrous vivid imagery. It is a complete exposé of government propaganda and its mystification of rampant mind-numbing corruption.

Telling the truth in a time of universal deceit is an act of revolution. Thank you, Charles Bowden.
November Coalition (www.november.org)

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What else is there to read that could possibly tell you more, December 6, 2002

By 

Seven Zero "Sanazaro" (eddyville, KY United States) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Down by the River : Drugs, Money, Murder, and Family (Hardcover)

Why would someone take 7 years of their life to write a book? Find out and read this book. It's not fiction, but when you read about the lives of those affected, including the author, you will wish it was. You won't want to think too long about how great amounts of money can change the way things should be. How money levers the honest officials in other countries and the U.S. into submission or how it lifts the greedy into powerful positions will shake you. The amounts of that money will be beyond comprehension. Want to know how the soldiers in the war on drugs are regarded and treated by those you think are their best advocates. Will the war ever be won or even end? This book will hold your attention, I highly recommend it.