Crossers

When Gil Castle loses his wife, he retreats to his family's sprawling homestead out west, a forsaken part of the country where drug lords have more power than police. Here Castle begins to rebuild his life, even as he uncovers some dark truths about his fearsome grandfather. When a Mexican illegal shows up at the ranch, terrified after a border-crossing drug deal gone bad, Castle agrees to take him in. Yet his act of generosity sets off a flood of violence and vengeance, a fierce reminder that we never truly escape our history. Spanning three generations of an Arizona family, Crossers is a blistering novel about the brutality and beauty of life on the border.

Philip Caputo worked for nine years for the Chicago Tribune and shared a Pulitzer Prize in 1972 for his reporting on election fraud in Chicago. He is the author of seven other works of fiction and two memoirs, including A Rumor of War, about his service in Vietnam, and four works of nonfiction. He divides his time between Connecticut and Arizona.