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Send More Idiots
Juarez, Mexico, is murder city, so it's not surprising when an American real estate broker vanishes there without a trace. The only person who shows any interest in his disappearance is his brother, Jon. Oddly, Jon seems more intent on trying to go missing himself than he is in actually figuring out what happened to his sibling.
Within a matter of days, Jon is sucked into the violent and darkly humorous web of cartel warlords and free-trade profiteers in which his brother was tangled up. As he dodges threats in El Paso and across the river in Juarez, Jon is aided by an alcoholic Iraq War veteran, a disgraced narcotics detective and a local tejana - all of whom have scores of their own to settle with the narcotraficantes.
Jon finds himself strangely drawn by the danger and flux of the borderland, and he soon realizes that smack in the middle of a raging drug war might be the only place he's ever felt truly alive...but the longer he stays, the more likely he is to be added to the rapidly mounting body count.
Fast-paced, frightening, and at times hilarious, Send More Idiots is ripped straight from today's headlines about one of the most bizarre frontiers in the world.
Within a matter of days, Jon is sucked into the violent and darkly humorous web of cartel warlords and free-trade profiteers in which his brother was tangled up. As he dodges threats in El Paso and across the river in Juarez, Jon is aided by an alcoholic Iraq War veteran, a disgraced narcotics detective and a local tejana - all of whom have scores of their own to settle with the narcotraficantes.
Jon finds himself strangely drawn by the danger and flux of the borderland, and he soon realizes that smack in the middle of a raging drug war might be the only place he's ever felt truly alive...but the longer he stays, the more likely he is to be added to the rapidly mounting body count.
Fast-paced, frightening, and at times hilarious, Send More Idiots is ripped straight from today's headlines about one of the most bizarre frontiers in the world.
324 pages, Paperback
First published December 30, 2014
About the author
Tony Perez-Giese
2 books30 followersTony Perez-Giese was born in Texas and currently resides in Seattle. He started off his writing career as a journalist during which time he won the Casey Medal for Meritorious Journalism. His first book "Pac Heights" was named Underground Book Review's "Best Novel of 2013." His second book "Send More Idiots" was published in 2015.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 58 reviews
March 22, 2015
A very visual tale, this would make a great movie. The characters are well-drawn with unique voices serving their own needs to carry the story forward. And this is a wild yarn; just when you think you've got the players figured out, a few more are added to the mix. If the details became a bit too confusing at times, not to worry, the author's sense of the bizarre would kick in and smooth things out again. This does seem ripe for the Coen brothers to film.
July 24, 2015
This book had me hooked instantly. I love the gritty, smart, insightful writing style, and had to know what happened to the main character Jon’s brother. I particularly enjoyed reading about the Mexican cartels, El Paso, and Juarez. A book that can provide knowledge on things in this world, as well as entertaining are amongst my faves. Anyone who enjoys gangster related novels, especially my fave Savages, will enjoy this. I would read another book from this author, for sure.
August 20, 2015
Hmmmm. A kinapping in Mexico, huh? Sounds like ground we've covered before with Savages and Man On Fire etc, right? This story starts off with a first-person account of an American real estate broker getting abducted in Juarez (aka Murder City) just across the Rio Grande from El Paso. Despite the familiar predicament, the reader can tell right away that this author is going to be describing this familiar plot from a highly unusual angle. "The Mexican punched me so hard that I said my mother's name, which is interesting because I don't like my mother."
After a pretty rigorous (and somewhat obligatory, but unique) torture scene, the narrative shifts perspective, and the action is from then on described from the real estate agent's POV while he describes the arrival in El Paso of his estranged older brother, Jon. This transition seemed a bit clunky at first, but the author is so good at describing the border (it's apparent that the author spent a good amount of time in the locations he so aptly describes) that I had no problem following along as Jon starts poking around into his brother's kidnapping. It's becomes obvious that Jon is not really looking for his brother when he has his first encounter with a local police detective named Iraan Sheffield. Sheffield can sense right off the bat that Jon is up to something aside from a missing person's case, and the back-and-forth between these two characters becomes one of the more entertaining aspects of the plot moving ahead.
In the days after his arrival in El Paso, Jon also meets Jimmy Gates, an alcoholic Iraq veteran with PTSD who becomes not only the comic relief of the book, but also its heart. It might seem cruel on paper to have a disabled and drunk war veteran be a source of humor, but Jimmy is so self-aware (and brilliant) that you never find yourself feeling sorry for him as you laugh at his wry observations and technological experiments gone wrong.
The third person who joins Jon's team (not that he's actually looking to recruit anyone--these folks all turn out to have motivations of their own to look into Jon's brother's dissapearance) is Sway, a local telephone lineman who sees Jon as an intriguing sexual conquest. At times when you're not laughing at the interaction between these four characters, one starts to wonder how they can possibly help move the plot along. It was at this point that I started to get worried about all these potential loose ends, but somehow the author manages to wrap things up in a way that not only makes sense, but is highly satisfying.
So back to the top of this review: what makes this Mexican cartel & kidnapping sotry unique? Quite simply, it's the author's ability to create compelling characters with layered motivations. This is especially the case with the brother Jon, who we soon find out is not so much interested in finding his brother as he is in finding an escape from his previous life. It's a pretty classic trope to have characters seeking something external actually be looking for something internal, but this book does it exceptionally well. So why 4 stars instead of five? You know, it's odd, but I think I'm docking that last star simply because I wanted this book to be longer. I wanted to stay in these characters' company long beyong page 304. I guess I'm a selfish reader.
After a pretty rigorous (and somewhat obligatory, but unique) torture scene, the narrative shifts perspective, and the action is from then on described from the real estate agent's POV while he describes the arrival in El Paso of his estranged older brother, Jon. This transition seemed a bit clunky at first, but the author is so good at describing the border (it's apparent that the author spent a good amount of time in the locations he so aptly describes) that I had no problem following along as Jon starts poking around into his brother's kidnapping. It's becomes obvious that Jon is not really looking for his brother when he has his first encounter with a local police detective named Iraan Sheffield. Sheffield can sense right off the bat that Jon is up to something aside from a missing person's case, and the back-and-forth between these two characters becomes one of the more entertaining aspects of the plot moving ahead.
In the days after his arrival in El Paso, Jon also meets Jimmy Gates, an alcoholic Iraq veteran with PTSD who becomes not only the comic relief of the book, but also its heart. It might seem cruel on paper to have a disabled and drunk war veteran be a source of humor, but Jimmy is so self-aware (and brilliant) that you never find yourself feeling sorry for him as you laugh at his wry observations and technological experiments gone wrong.
The third person who joins Jon's team (not that he's actually looking to recruit anyone--these folks all turn out to have motivations of their own to look into Jon's brother's dissapearance) is Sway, a local telephone lineman who sees Jon as an intriguing sexual conquest. At times when you're not laughing at the interaction between these four characters, one starts to wonder how they can possibly help move the plot along. It was at this point that I started to get worried about all these potential loose ends, but somehow the author manages to wrap things up in a way that not only makes sense, but is highly satisfying.
So back to the top of this review: what makes this Mexican cartel & kidnapping sotry unique? Quite simply, it's the author's ability to create compelling characters with layered motivations. This is especially the case with the brother Jon, who we soon find out is not so much interested in finding his brother as he is in finding an escape from his previous life. It's a pretty classic trope to have characters seeking something external actually be looking for something internal, but this book does it exceptionally well. So why 4 stars instead of five? You know, it's odd, but I think I'm docking that last star simply because I wanted this book to be longer. I wanted to stay in these characters' company long beyong page 304. I guess I'm a selfish reader.
June 20, 2015
I related to this book's cental theme about using external tragedy for personal reasons. Great writing, wonderful dialogue! Never thought I'd enjoy a book about Juarez, but I did.
So here's the set-up: An American real estate broker (Chris) gets kidnapped in Juarez, Mexico and his brother, Jon, comes down to look for him. Sounds pretty simple, right? Wrong. Jon and his brother have a virtually non-existent relationship, which is demonstrated early on during a flashback to an Easter holiday. During the family-time Jon's wife Cheryl confides in Chris(only after Chris tries to hook up with her) that she's been having an affair with one of the partner's at Jon's law firm. She's doing this because Jon's become so aloof that she thinks it's the only way to get his attention. And here how's much the brothers like each other: Chris decides to stick around for a bit longer so he can be the one to break the news of Cheryl's infidelity. Given this dysfunction, why does Jon come all the way down to El Paso to look for Chris? This is the question that provides the emotional spine of this novel. Jon is not looking to figure out what happened to his brother, but for what happened to himself.
As for the plot, it all revolves around Jon's misadventures along the border as he gets pulled deeper into the word of narcotrafficantes. While he personally doesn't care about solving the mystery, he realizes he has to make some half-hearted attempts of pretending to investigate the crime simply to keep his family and wife off his back. The problem is that the folks he encounters in El Paso won't let him quit looking. These three main supporting characters--Iraan the police detective, Sway the lonely lady looking for some excitement, and Jimmy the retired Army major with PTSD--are all carefully crafted and realistic. Their often hilarious dialogue the strongest part of this novel and I found myself getting antsy (in a good way) on every page where at least one of them was not involved.
This is not to say that there aren't other great characters Jon encounters along the way (the Mexican drug agent Paulino V comes to mind) and the author shows a great skill in having each of them advance the story. Because Jon is so clueless, the author has the characters explain the history of the drug problem along the US/Mexico border to Jon and thereby fills in the reader.
The author also has a clean and concise writing style that allows him to get his points across with a minimum of words and a maximum of emotion. This seems to be a lost art as so much of what I read lately seems happy to use five sentences when one would suffice.
I won't get too deep into what happens as Jon gets closer to figuring out what happened to his brother, but I will say that story never descends into cliché and Jon is able to undergo a significant transformation from a person who doesn't car about anything to a man who's willing to risk his life to figure out the truth. And while the ending was a bit goofy, it did allow all the characters to stay true to themselves while also nicely resolving the mystery.
Perez-Giese has a book he wrote before this one which I have started reading. Although the other book ("Pac Heights") is a radical departure in setting and story, I'm delighted to say that his writing style and skill for creating unforgettable characters is going to hopefully make him one of our new literary stars.
So here's the set-up: An American real estate broker (Chris) gets kidnapped in Juarez, Mexico and his brother, Jon, comes down to look for him. Sounds pretty simple, right? Wrong. Jon and his brother have a virtually non-existent relationship, which is demonstrated early on during a flashback to an Easter holiday. During the family-time Jon's wife Cheryl confides in Chris(only after Chris tries to hook up with her) that she's been having an affair with one of the partner's at Jon's law firm. She's doing this because Jon's become so aloof that she thinks it's the only way to get his attention. And here how's much the brothers like each other: Chris decides to stick around for a bit longer so he can be the one to break the news of Cheryl's infidelity. Given this dysfunction, why does Jon come all the way down to El Paso to look for Chris? This is the question that provides the emotional spine of this novel. Jon is not looking to figure out what happened to his brother, but for what happened to himself.
As for the plot, it all revolves around Jon's misadventures along the border as he gets pulled deeper into the word of narcotrafficantes. While he personally doesn't care about solving the mystery, he realizes he has to make some half-hearted attempts of pretending to investigate the crime simply to keep his family and wife off his back. The problem is that the folks he encounters in El Paso won't let him quit looking. These three main supporting characters--Iraan the police detective, Sway the lonely lady looking for some excitement, and Jimmy the retired Army major with PTSD--are all carefully crafted and realistic. Their often hilarious dialogue the strongest part of this novel and I found myself getting antsy (in a good way) on every page where at least one of them was not involved.
This is not to say that there aren't other great characters Jon encounters along the way (the Mexican drug agent Paulino V comes to mind) and the author shows a great skill in having each of them advance the story. Because Jon is so clueless, the author has the characters explain the history of the drug problem along the US/Mexico border to Jon and thereby fills in the reader.
The author also has a clean and concise writing style that allows him to get his points across with a minimum of words and a maximum of emotion. This seems to be a lost art as so much of what I read lately seems happy to use five sentences when one would suffice.
I won't get too deep into what happens as Jon gets closer to figuring out what happened to his brother, but I will say that story never descends into cliché and Jon is able to undergo a significant transformation from a person who doesn't car about anything to a man who's willing to risk his life to figure out the truth. And while the ending was a bit goofy, it did allow all the characters to stay true to themselves while also nicely resolving the mystery.
Perez-Giese has a book he wrote before this one which I have started reading. Although the other book ("Pac Heights") is a radical departure in setting and story, I'm delighted to say that his writing style and skill for creating unforgettable characters is going to hopefully make him one of our new literary stars.
August 19, 2015
This was my first read of 2015, and it sure kicked the year off with a bang. The book opens with the best line I've read in a long time, and it takes off from there.
Without giving too much away (it is a mystery after all), the story revolves around the kidnapping of an American real estate broker in Juarez, Mexico. Because of how run-of-the-mill kidnappings are in Mexico, the authorities and the kidnapped man's family give up the search after just a week or so. That's when the kidnapped man's brother (Jon, a corporate lawyer from Denver) arrives on the scene in El Paso, Texas, just across the border from Juarez. It becomes obvious fairly quickly that Jon is using his brother's dissappearance as an excuse to ditch out on his life back home, and instead of really investigating the kidnapping, he spends his first few days just going through the motions of assembling a missing person's case.
During the course of Jon's "investigation", he runs into a trio of fantastic El Paso characters who basically force him to start taking the dissapearance seriously. That, along with pressure from home to wrap up the case, forces Jon right in the middle of the ongoing Juarez "narcotraficante" wars. From that point, the book accelerates into one of the more bizarre (and humorous) climaxes that I've read in a long time.
Great characters, spot-on dialogue, and also some really interesting background on the ongoing narco wars along the US/Mexico border. Here are a couple books it reminded me of: No Country for Old Men Savages 2666
Without giving too much away (it is a mystery after all), the story revolves around the kidnapping of an American real estate broker in Juarez, Mexico. Because of how run-of-the-mill kidnappings are in Mexico, the authorities and the kidnapped man's family give up the search after just a week or so. That's when the kidnapped man's brother (Jon, a corporate lawyer from Denver) arrives on the scene in El Paso, Texas, just across the border from Juarez. It becomes obvious fairly quickly that Jon is using his brother's dissappearance as an excuse to ditch out on his life back home, and instead of really investigating the kidnapping, he spends his first few days just going through the motions of assembling a missing person's case.
During the course of Jon's "investigation", he runs into a trio of fantastic El Paso characters who basically force him to start taking the dissapearance seriously. That, along with pressure from home to wrap up the case, forces Jon right in the middle of the ongoing Juarez "narcotraficante" wars. From that point, the book accelerates into one of the more bizarre (and humorous) climaxes that I've read in a long time.
Great characters, spot-on dialogue, and also some really interesting background on the ongoing narco wars along the US/Mexico border. Here are a couple books it reminded me of: No Country for Old Men Savages 2666
May 26, 2026
4.5
~ and 'Send More Idiots' may not be quite as funny as the title suggests, but it's certainly got its share of quirky humor as well as the occasional darkly comic joke that lands well:
As 'SMI' violently opens, we're in the shoes of real estate agent Jon Lennox, who has been abducted by Mexican thugs; it seems due to a screw-up on their part (not that they'd ever admit to or accept having made a mistake).
From there - and this is particularly satisfying about the novel's construction - Jon, as a character, becomes more of an omniscient storyteller - so we then (and thereafter) get to see what his situation is like from the POV of his family members, esp. his older, lawyer brother Chris.
It's not as though the two brothers share a strong bond. Nevertheless, upon hearing of the disappearance, Chris hightails it to Juarez. This is where his overall motivation becomes muddy. Yes, there's the sense that there's some concern for a blood relative. But there's a stronger sense that Chris is fascinated by the fact that his brother has 'achieved' evaporation; a state he seems to envy (considering the lack of meaning in his own life / marriage).
The novel has the requisite amount of eccentric characters for a work of this sort. And author Perez-Giese seems to have admirably done his research, as the novel is peppered with little-known facts:
If I have a reservation, it has to do with the wrap-up. While the finale ties things together, I found it overly complicated. But, on the other hand, it does reflect the fact that a cartel, aside from its obvious exterior, is likely to also have confounding contradictions at its core.
If you've ever seen Orson Welles' 'Touch of Evil', 'SMI' may, by the end, have you feeling something similar... with a side of laughs.
"The headshrinker at the VA told me something like how dreams are the same as when the physical body sweats; they help process the bad memories. That's what he said, anyway. He also said I was probably gay."This is a novel I picked up because of its title, which amused me. Selecting a book for its title is not always foolproof. For example, 'The Locusts Have No King', while not a comic novel, is still Dawn Powell's best title (lifted from the Bible). But it's far from her best book.
~ and 'Send More Idiots' may not be quite as funny as the title suggests, but it's certainly got its share of quirky humor as well as the occasional darkly comic joke that lands well:
The Mexican punched me so hard that I said my mother's name, which is interesting because I don't like my mother.Overall, it sort of reminded me of a specific Coen Brothers movie, 'Burn After Reading' - mostly due to its specific tone and only partly due to its subject matter.
As 'SMI' violently opens, we're in the shoes of real estate agent Jon Lennox, who has been abducted by Mexican thugs; it seems due to a screw-up on their part (not that they'd ever admit to or accept having made a mistake).
From there - and this is particularly satisfying about the novel's construction - Jon, as a character, becomes more of an omniscient storyteller - so we then (and thereafter) get to see what his situation is like from the POV of his family members, esp. his older, lawyer brother Chris.
It's not as though the two brothers share a strong bond. Nevertheless, upon hearing of the disappearance, Chris hightails it to Juarez. This is where his overall motivation becomes muddy. Yes, there's the sense that there's some concern for a blood relative. But there's a stronger sense that Chris is fascinated by the fact that his brother has 'achieved' evaporation; a state he seems to envy (considering the lack of meaning in his own life / marriage).
The novel has the requisite amount of eccentric characters for a work of this sort. And author Perez-Giese seems to have admirably done his research, as the novel is peppered with little-known facts:
Sending all our boys off to fight World War II left huge swaths of agricultural land unattended, especially in the West. To keep the crops from rotting in the field, the U.S. government got together with Mexico to set up what they called the Bracero Program, which allowed Mexican workers to legally enter the United States to fill the void in the workforce. They shut the program down and deported the Mexican workers when the G.I.s got back. This stranded a huge labor pool in northern Mexico without anything to do until some genius came up with the idea of having American companies open factories just across the border to take advantage of these displaced workers. The deal was sweetened with tax breaks.The long sequence involving a surprising death, followed by the transfer of the corpse across the border is certainly eye-opening and tense. And, in general, the novel is commendably atmospheric.
If I have a reservation, it has to do with the wrap-up. While the finale ties things together, I found it overly complicated. But, on the other hand, it does reflect the fact that a cartel, aside from its obvious exterior, is likely to also have confounding contradictions at its core.
If you've ever seen Orson Welles' 'Touch of Evil', 'SMI' may, by the end, have you feeling something similar... with a side of laughs.
August 19, 2015
Savages + No Country for Old Men + Fletch = this book. Loved it!
May 31, 2015
Send More Idiots is a novel by an award-winning journalist who experienced life on both sides of the border in El Paso, Texas, and Juarez, Mexico. Steeped in this background, the novel is thus able to capture the culture and feel of the region far more than any outsider could have accomplished, presenting a blend of intrigue and social insights as it delves into the mystery of a vanished American real estate broker and his brother who becomes involved in a complex world of cartel warlords and danger trying to find him.
As the narrator becomes increasingly immersed in the atmosphere of the border and the drug wars that both invigorate and frighten him, he draws ever closer to the truth about what happened to his brother - and what might happen to him if he stays.
Exquisite tension and a dance of deadly forces emerges against the backdrop of social and political border town tensions in Send More Idiots, recommended for any who would absorb a strange new world living along a unique American frontier dream.
As the narrator becomes increasingly immersed in the atmosphere of the border and the drug wars that both invigorate and frighten him, he draws ever closer to the truth about what happened to his brother - and what might happen to him if he stays.
Exquisite tension and a dance of deadly forces emerges against the backdrop of social and political border town tensions in Send More Idiots, recommended for any who would absorb a strange new world living along a unique American frontier dream.
August 20, 2015
While tearing through this book, I couldn't stop thinking about what a great movie it would make! I'm sure authors hate hearing that, but this book was so incredibly visual and the characters so vivid that I couldn't help seeing it spool out in my mind's movie theater.
The plot is pretty simple: A man's younger brother gets kidnapped in Juarez, Mexico, so the man ("Jon") goes down to the border to try and figure out what happened. The twist here is that the brothers actually kind of hate each other, so nobody can understand why Jon is wasting his time. Slowly but surely, it becomes evident that Jon is just using his brother's dissappearnce as an excuse to have a mid-life crisis. The only problem is that the longer Jon stays on the border pretending to investigate the kidnapping, the deeper he gets sucked into the violent underworld of drug cartel violence.
Getting back to the movie idea, this book reminded me a lot of The Big Lebowski and Inherent Vice--specifically how the main character gets sucked into something way bigger than himself despite his best efforts to stay out of it. And just when I thought I knew how the book was going to end, the book took a crazy twist that really had me laughing.
The plot is pretty simple: A man's younger brother gets kidnapped in Juarez, Mexico, so the man ("Jon") goes down to the border to try and figure out what happened. The twist here is that the brothers actually kind of hate each other, so nobody can understand why Jon is wasting his time. Slowly but surely, it becomes evident that Jon is just using his brother's dissappearnce as an excuse to have a mid-life crisis. The only problem is that the longer Jon stays on the border pretending to investigate the kidnapping, the deeper he gets sucked into the violent underworld of drug cartel violence.
Getting back to the movie idea, this book reminded me a lot of The Big Lebowski and Inherent Vice--specifically how the main character gets sucked into something way bigger than himself despite his best efforts to stay out of it. And just when I thought I knew how the book was going to end, the book took a crazy twist that really had me laughing.
June 6, 2015
Great characters, including the character and odd charm of El Paso and Juarez. The author really captured the essence of living life and running into unforeseen adventures in the Sun City. The story moves at a perfect pace, with dynamic dialog and good action. I would have liked a more dramatic ending, but it really was the only reasonable outcome. Looking forward to more books by Tony Perez-Giese.
March 11, 2015
I'm giving this book a massive recommendation. It's a fun page turner from beginning to end. The background of El Paso and Juarez nearly serve as the main characters, and they read as beautiful, dangerous, purely unique. The older brother, Jon, reminds me of John Sutter from The Gold Coast, a wry sensible man that has found himself in way too deep. Plenty of hilarious storytelling and dialogue. I feel there could be a trilogy started here!
May 10, 2023
The main character even admits that the ending is "so stupid that it’s not even fucking stupid anymore." The story started out so good. Jon goes to J-Town to find his brother or his brother's body or his brother's body parts. Jon is a lousy investigator, but it doesn't matter. Jon can't go back and there’s no way forward. To resolve this futile situation the author decides to turn the narcos into . I want a refund.
January 16, 2015
I really enjoyed this book, but probably not for the same reason most people will. Although I loved the plot, the characters and the setting (it's weird, but even though the author described El Paso as a real "armpit", the book still makes me think it would be a cool place to visit) the part that really got to me was the emotional state of the main character. I could just totally relate.
The basic plot is that this man's brother gets kidnapped, and nobody knows (or really cares) if he is alive or dead. Still, the man's brother Jon heads down to the border to start looking into it. It becomes obvious right away that Jon could care less about finding his brother. What he does care about is that the kidnapping has provided him with an excuse to, in his wife's words, "blow up" his life.
There are some books that you just read at the exact right time of your life, and this one came along right after I went through a very similar personal experience. Not to get too deep into it, but I could totally see myself in the Jon character and the way he exploited what most people would view as a tragic situation for his own purposes. I wish I could do a better job explaining it, so my advice is to just read the book!
The basic plot is that this man's brother gets kidnapped, and nobody knows (or really cares) if he is alive or dead. Still, the man's brother Jon heads down to the border to start looking into it. It becomes obvious right away that Jon could care less about finding his brother. What he does care about is that the kidnapping has provided him with an excuse to, in his wife's words, "blow up" his life.
There are some books that you just read at the exact right time of your life, and this one came along right after I went through a very similar personal experience. Not to get too deep into it, but I could totally see myself in the Jon character and the way he exploited what most people would view as a tragic situation for his own purposes. I wish I could do a better job explaining it, so my advice is to just read the book!
August 19, 2015
I chewed this one in two nights. I like the author's mostly spare writing voice, and I really enjoyed the way he described the Texas / Mexico border and all the local characters. File under The Cartel, Country of the Bad Wolfes, No Country for Old Men and Six Bad Things
September 22, 2015
Read this one on the heels of The Cartel and liked this one much better. The characters were great and the plot just quirky enough to avoid being cute. Kind of a mashup of Man On Fire for the grit and Inherent ViceInherent Vice for the off-beat humor and situations. Solid book.
February 18, 2015
Overall good novel. Was a bit slow for me to get into the characters but once things got going I enjoyed the book thoroughly.
May 20, 2015
Well-done and engrossing. Great characters.
January 2, 2022
Very entertaining but there is too much very bad language. I was perhaps more interested than the average person would be as I lived along the border for years in Texas and my parents were married in El Paso. Juarez is very dangerous and perhaps the most dangerous place in the Western Hemisphere per Tony Perez-Giese.
August 19, 2015
My reading of this book MAY have been unduly affected by recently binge-watching of the entire “Mad Men” series. I saw a lot of Don Draper in the main Jon character.
Looking through other reviews of this novel, I see that they primarily focus upon the central crime which starts off this story as opposed to the actual opening line, “The Mexican punched me so hard that I said my mother’s name, which is interesting because I don’t really like my mother.” Not only is that a top-notch opener, but for me it set the theme for the rest of the book. Reading on from there, I kept coming back to how this book was a commentary on the modern family just as much (if not more) as it was a drug cartel mystery.
The crux of the novel (for me) is how far apart the main character Jon’s inward and outward appearances are. On the surface, he’s a well-paid attorney with a beautiful wife and all the other accoutrements of “success.” Inwardly, this guy is so estranged from any sense of real connection that he sees the kidnapping of his brother as an opportunity for escape rather than a tragedy. Then, as the novel moves along, the characters who Jon becomes attached to are ones so far removed from any modern ideal of “normal” that the author’s intent seemed quite blatant to me. Back to the Don Draper idea: The Jon character represents the modern archetype of a man so perfect on the outside that to our cynical modern eyes he MUST be lonely on the inside.
So now that I’ve got that “Mad Men” stuff off my chest, this is still a great novel for all its surface intent. The central mystery is intriguing, the plot moves quickly and (unlike a lot of other books I’ve been reading these days) makes sense, and the dialogue is Mamet quality. Highly recommended. File alongside Savages , Six Bad Things, Inherent Vice
Looking through other reviews of this novel, I see that they primarily focus upon the central crime which starts off this story as opposed to the actual opening line, “The Mexican punched me so hard that I said my mother’s name, which is interesting because I don’t really like my mother.” Not only is that a top-notch opener, but for me it set the theme for the rest of the book. Reading on from there, I kept coming back to how this book was a commentary on the modern family just as much (if not more) as it was a drug cartel mystery.
The crux of the novel (for me) is how far apart the main character Jon’s inward and outward appearances are. On the surface, he’s a well-paid attorney with a beautiful wife and all the other accoutrements of “success.” Inwardly, this guy is so estranged from any sense of real connection that he sees the kidnapping of his brother as an opportunity for escape rather than a tragedy. Then, as the novel moves along, the characters who Jon becomes attached to are ones so far removed from any modern ideal of “normal” that the author’s intent seemed quite blatant to me. Back to the Don Draper idea: The Jon character represents the modern archetype of a man so perfect on the outside that to our cynical modern eyes he MUST be lonely on the inside.
So now that I’ve got that “Mad Men” stuff off my chest, this is still a great novel for all its surface intent. The central mystery is intriguing, the plot moves quickly and (unlike a lot of other books I’ve been reading these days) makes sense, and the dialogue is Mamet quality. Highly recommended. File alongside Savages , Six Bad Things, Inherent Vice
August 20, 2015
Bam, bam, bam! Learn about the killer cartels while laughing along with this book's motley crue of misfits trying to track down a missing dude in Juarez, Mexico. 6-to-10 Jimmy mixes the drinks, provides the laughs and assembles the weaponry that never works. Sway provides the local savvy, sex and tech. Iraan does the cop work and keeps everyone on point, and the main character Jon just tries to avoid his wife (and life) throughout. Felt like I was baking in the El Paso broiler right along with these guys, all of whom I was very sorry to close the final page on. I've got this on the shelf alongside other faves Savages, No Country for Old Men and Six Bad Things
January 30, 2015
read this right after trying to finish "american sniper". I was kind of disappointed by the ending of this book, and all the star trek stuff seemed silly. but then I thought about how it seems like the author made such an effort to avoid gratuitous violence as opposed to "sniper" and that made me like it more. I was sure this book was headed into a big gunfight and then it went the other way. i think it's too easy to portray violence and i wish more "true crime" writers would make the effort that this book did to explain how truly scary actual violence is.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 20, 2015
Saw the tag for this book as Fargo meets Elmore Leonard and it didn't disappoint. Loved the ending
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August 4, 2015
Aunque un poco confuso al principio, me ha gustado mucho el libro. Gasté muchos años en Juárez para el trabajo, y leyendo esto me tomó espalda derecha allí. ¡Muy recomendado!
June 23, 2015
This story starts off with a first-person account of an American real estate broker getting abducted in Juarez (aka Murder City) just across the Rio Grande from El Paso. Despite the somewhat cliche predicament, the reader can tell right away that this author is going to be describing this familiar plot from a highly unusual angle. "The Mexican punched me so hard that I said my mother's name, which is interesting because I don't like my mother."
After a pretty rigorous (and somewhat obligatory) torture scene, the narrative shifts perspective, and the action is from then on described from the real estate agent's POV--is he dead and describing the action from the grave?--as he describes the arrival in El Paso of his estranged older brother, Jon. This narrative transition was a bit clunky at first, but the author is so good at describing the border (it's apparent that he spent a good amount of time in the locations he so aptly describes) that I had no problem following along as Jon starts poking around into his brother's kidnapping. It's becomes obvious that Jon is not really looking for his brother after his first encounter with a local police detective named Iraan Sheffield. Sheffield can sense right off the bat that Jon is up to something aside from a missing person's case, and the back-and-forth between these two characters becomes one of the more entertaining aspects of the the book as the plot moves ahead.
In the days after his arrival in El Paso, Jon also meets Jimmy Gates, an alcoholic Iraq veteran with PTSD who is a very funny character. It might seem cruel to have a disabled and drunk war veteran be a source of humor, but Jimmy is so self-aware (and brilliant) that you never find yourself feeling sorry for him.
The third person who joins Jon's "team" (not that he's actually looking to recruit anyone--these folks all turn out to have motivations of their own to look into Jon's brother's disappearance) is Sway, a local telephone lineman who sees Jon as an intriguing sexual conquest. At times when you're not laughing at the interaction between these four characters, one starts to wonder how they can possibly help move the plot along. It was at this point that I started to get worried about all these potential loose ends, but somehow the author manages to wrap things up in a way that not only makes sense, but is highly satisfying.
So what makes this Mexican cartel & kidnapping story unique? Quite simply, it's the author's ability to create compelling characters with layered motivations. This is especially the case with the brother Jon. It's a pretty classic trope to have characters seeking something external actually be looking for something internal, but this book does it exceptionally well. The only real bad thing about this book is I wanted this book to be longer than is tidy 324 pages.
After a pretty rigorous (and somewhat obligatory) torture scene, the narrative shifts perspective, and the action is from then on described from the real estate agent's POV--is he dead and describing the action from the grave?--as he describes the arrival in El Paso of his estranged older brother, Jon. This narrative transition was a bit clunky at first, but the author is so good at describing the border (it's apparent that he spent a good amount of time in the locations he so aptly describes) that I had no problem following along as Jon starts poking around into his brother's kidnapping. It's becomes obvious that Jon is not really looking for his brother after his first encounter with a local police detective named Iraan Sheffield. Sheffield can sense right off the bat that Jon is up to something aside from a missing person's case, and the back-and-forth between these two characters becomes one of the more entertaining aspects of the the book as the plot moves ahead.
In the days after his arrival in El Paso, Jon also meets Jimmy Gates, an alcoholic Iraq veteran with PTSD who is a very funny character. It might seem cruel to have a disabled and drunk war veteran be a source of humor, but Jimmy is so self-aware (and brilliant) that you never find yourself feeling sorry for him.
The third person who joins Jon's "team" (not that he's actually looking to recruit anyone--these folks all turn out to have motivations of their own to look into Jon's brother's disappearance) is Sway, a local telephone lineman who sees Jon as an intriguing sexual conquest. At times when you're not laughing at the interaction between these four characters, one starts to wonder how they can possibly help move the plot along. It was at this point that I started to get worried about all these potential loose ends, but somehow the author manages to wrap things up in a way that not only makes sense, but is highly satisfying.
So what makes this Mexican cartel & kidnapping story unique? Quite simply, it's the author's ability to create compelling characters with layered motivations. This is especially the case with the brother Jon. It's a pretty classic trope to have characters seeking something external actually be looking for something internal, but this book does it exceptionally well. The only real bad thing about this book is I wanted this book to be longer than is tidy 324 pages.
August 13, 2016
Jon Lennox' kid brother just disappeared in Mexico. He didn't run off with a woman, though, he disappeared in a place where the streets are paved with gunshells and which the neighbors call "Murder City", Juarez. Everyone else has written Chris off as another cartel casualty, even though he was a real estate broker unconnected to the drug trade, but Jon can't let it rest. Setting up shop in a seedy hotel in El Paso, he tries to make connections in the area that will help him discover what became of his brother. His allies will include a telephone line-woman whose favorite word is "Cállate!", a disgraced cop, and an Iraq war vet on disability who still lingers in the Fort Bliss area to stay close to his brothers-in-arms. In pursuit of a man's rescue, or just a strike back against the leading cartel, the three stumble into unspoken agreements between the American DEA and the lead gunman in Juarez, resulting in several shootouts and a climax at a Star Trek convention.
Send More Idiots is the opposite of bland, beginning in action and never resting. The moments between periods of active danger are filled with heated debate and discussion, as Jon tries to work out his next move and everyone tells him he's a lunatic who is going to get himself killed. His allies are no less dangerous: the cop has his own private revenge motive, the vet's improvised weaponry has a tendency to electrocute the user, and the linewoman's cousin is sleeping with the mob. The characters all have a vibrancy to them -- they're audacious, desperate, and completely entertaining. No less lively is the background of El Paso-Juarez, both gritty in their ways. The narrative frame is also unusual, the story is being delivered by...the missing person. He's not very active, but every so often he refers to 'my brother' Jon, and we're reminded, yep - -the object of Jon's search is the one telling the story, so something is up. The characters suspect that something's up with Jon, too: instead of leaving it to the private investigators and police authorities, he's actively going into narco clubs looking for el jefe. It's as if he wants to get into trouble, and many of those who know him suspect that this episode for him is a once-in-a-lifetime chance for adventure, an opportunity to stop being the responsible-but miserable lawyer, an obedient husband-and-son, and do something outstanding and courageous.
Send More Idiots is one of the faster-paced novels I've read this year, full of comic action. Definitely one to remember..
Send More Idiots is the opposite of bland, beginning in action and never resting. The moments between periods of active danger are filled with heated debate and discussion, as Jon tries to work out his next move and everyone tells him he's a lunatic who is going to get himself killed. His allies are no less dangerous: the cop has his own private revenge motive, the vet's improvised weaponry has a tendency to electrocute the user, and the linewoman's cousin is sleeping with the mob. The characters all have a vibrancy to them -- they're audacious, desperate, and completely entertaining. No less lively is the background of El Paso-Juarez, both gritty in their ways. The narrative frame is also unusual, the story is being delivered by...the missing person. He's not very active, but every so often he refers to 'my brother' Jon, and we're reminded, yep - -the object of Jon's search is the one telling the story, so something is up. The characters suspect that something's up with Jon, too: instead of leaving it to the private investigators and police authorities, he's actively going into narco clubs looking for el jefe. It's as if he wants to get into trouble, and many of those who know him suspect that this episode for him is a once-in-a-lifetime chance for adventure, an opportunity to stop being the responsible-but miserable lawyer, an obedient husband-and-son, and do something outstanding and courageous.
Send More Idiots is one of the faster-paced novels I've read this year, full of comic action. Definitely one to remember..
July 31, 2015
Novels that start off with this much violence are not usually my favourites, but my mate recommended it, so I stuck with it. I was pleased to see that after the initial 10 pages of knockaround, the book settled down into what turned out to be a much more thoughtful read.
The book's plot revolves around an American (Jon Lennox) searching for his missing brother in Juarez, Mexico. The truth of the matter is that this bloke Lennox is really using the dissappearance as an excuse for HIM to go missing from his responsibilities back home. The problem is that the people in the Texas town El Paso (just across the border from Juarez) won't let him give up. I particularly enjoyed the police detective character who was unlike any other copper I've run across in my reading. His give and take with Lennox is brilliant, and had me laughing out loud several times. Equally entertaining: the local woman who fancies Lennox as the new boy in town, but ends up helping him in his search; the retired Army major who is Lennox's neighbour at the cheap motel he ends up staying in also had me chortling.
My fear was that after a very enjoyable 300 pages, the book would revert back to the rough stuff. I won't spoil the ending here, but I was delighted by how the author managed to satisfy the central mystery of the missing brother while avoiding the cliches often found in these American crime fiction books.
The book's plot revolves around an American (Jon Lennox) searching for his missing brother in Juarez, Mexico. The truth of the matter is that this bloke Lennox is really using the dissappearance as an excuse for HIM to go missing from his responsibilities back home. The problem is that the people in the Texas town El Paso (just across the border from Juarez) won't let him give up. I particularly enjoyed the police detective character who was unlike any other copper I've run across in my reading. His give and take with Lennox is brilliant, and had me laughing out loud several times. Equally entertaining: the local woman who fancies Lennox as the new boy in town, but ends up helping him in his search; the retired Army major who is Lennox's neighbour at the cheap motel he ends up staying in also had me chortling.
My fear was that after a very enjoyable 300 pages, the book would revert back to the rough stuff. I won't spoil the ending here, but I was delighted by how the author managed to satisfy the central mystery of the missing brother while avoiding the cliches often found in these American crime fiction books.
January 29, 2015
This book completely blind-sided me. I mean, I picked it up off my buddy's coffee table and next thing you know it's morning and I'm trying to figure out what the hell I just spent all night reading. It's mystery (sort of), and thriller (kind of) and a comedy (quite a bit), but it doesn't really fit into any of those categories cleanly. I guess you just have to call it a really good bit of fiction. I loved all the characters, the set up and pay-off of the plot was, quite frankly, one of the more enjoyably weird things I'd ever read, and the setting was so descriptive that the next day I found myself googling images of Juarez and El Paso to confirm what I had seen in my head.
Mostly, I'm just amazed by how easily this book could've gone down a tried and true route used in so many other books about drug cartels, and yet it somehow managed to stay on a totally different level. Like one of the characters says, "Real Life ain't like that Denzel movie." Thank God!
Mostly, I'm just amazed by how easily this book could've gone down a tried and true route used in so many other books about drug cartels, and yet it somehow managed to stay on a totally different level. Like one of the characters says, "Real Life ain't like that Denzel movie." Thank God!
July 16, 2015
DISCLAIMER: I was in a Lit class with the author in college!
I don't usually write book reviews, but I was so suprised to see one of my old classmates on the shelves (ok, virtual shelves) of amazon that I bought the book not really caring if it was any good. I'll admit that part of me was hoping that this book would be a massive disaster (Schadenfreude central) as I recall this guy being one of those people in school who were cool while also being talented--the worst mix, right? So imagine my feelings when this booked strapped me in and took me for a GREAT ride.
I'm not sure if I can give a plot synopsis worthy of what happens in the book, but the setting and the characters and the dialogue are all amazing. The ending actually made me laugh out loud. Given the recent escape of "El Chapo", this book is also totally relevant.
Way to go "TPG"!
I don't usually write book reviews, but I was so suprised to see one of my old classmates on the shelves (ok, virtual shelves) of amazon that I bought the book not really caring if it was any good. I'll admit that part of me was hoping that this book would be a massive disaster (Schadenfreude central) as I recall this guy being one of those people in school who were cool while also being talented--the worst mix, right? So imagine my feelings when this booked strapped me in and took me for a GREAT ride.
I'm not sure if I can give a plot synopsis worthy of what happens in the book, but the setting and the characters and the dialogue are all amazing. The ending actually made me laugh out loud. Given the recent escape of "El Chapo", this book is also totally relevant.
Way to go "TPG"!
October 20, 2015
I went on a Mexican drug cartel book spree last month and found some great ones by Don Winslow in Savages and The Cartel as well as an old favorite Dog Soldiers, but Send More Idiots ended up being my favorite of the bunch. A really nice balance of crime, humor and characters that I could completely visualize being down there in the badlands.
September 3, 2015
Thrilling, scary and really funny. This would make a great movie! A mashup of The Cartel, No Country for Old Men and Inherent Vice.
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