Overview

The definitive account of the mass disappearance of forty-three Mexican students and the government that tried to cover it up On September 26, 2014, forty-three male students from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers' College went missing in Iguala, Guerrero, Mexico. According to official reports, the students commandeered several buses to travel to Mexico City to commemorate the anniversary of the 1968 Tlatelolco Massacre. During the journey, local police intercepted the students and a confrontation ensued. By the morning, they had disappeared without a trace. Hernández reconstructs almost minute-by-minute the events of those nights in late September 2014, giving us what is surely the most complete picture available: her sources are unparalleled, since she has secured access to internal government documents that have not been made public, and to video surveillance footage the government has tried to hide and destroy. Hernández demolishes the Mexican state's official version, which the Peña Nieto government cynically dubbed the historic truth. State officials at all levels, from police and prosecutors to the upper echelons of the PRI administration, conspired to put together a fake case, concealing or manipulating evidence, and arresting and torturing dozens of suspects who then obliged with full confessions that matched the official lie. In the wake of the students' disappearances, protestors in Mexico took up the slogan Fue el estado--It was the state. Hernández's book is the one that gives most precision and credibility to the claim: by following the role of the various Mexican state agencies through the events in such remarkable detail, she allows us to see exactly which parts of the state are responsible for which component of this monumental crime.

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Anabel Hernandez is one of Mexico's leading investigative journalists. She has worked on national dailies, including Reforma, Milenio, and El Universal and its investigative supplement La Revista. Her previous books include the award-winning Narcoland, La familia presidencial, Fin de fiesta en los pinos, and Los complices del presidente. In awarding Hernandez the 2012 Golden Pen of Freedom, the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers noted, ""Mexico has become one of the most dangerous countries in the world for journalists, with violence and impunity remaining major challenges in terms of press freedom. In making this award, we recognize the strong stance Ms. Hernandez has taken, at great personal risk, against drug cartels."" Rebecca Gibel (a.k.a. Kasha Kensington) is a audiobook narrator and stage actress who has performed in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Camelot (IRNE Award nomination), Urinetown (Denver Post Ovation Award nomination), and Othello. She won the Denver Post Readers' Choice Award for Best Year by an Actress. She is a graduate of the Brown University Trinity Rep MFA acting program, where she was the Stephen Sondheim Fellow.

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