Dirty Dealing

Drug Smuggling on the Mexican Border and the Assassination of a Federal Judge

By: Gary Cartwright

Narrated by: J. Rodney Turner

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

Sell this story to Netflix!

I can't believe this book hasn't been turned into a Netflix mini series! It was hard to stop listening.
Great narrator too.

Entertaining yes. Impartial no.

Very interesting read. Unfortunately, the author’s admittedly close relationship with one of the defendants was obvious throughout the entire telling.

Excellent recount of El Paso families.

This was a very interesting time in history..
Dirty Dealing is a classic story of Power Corruption Lies Having Grow up in El Paso at that time..