La reina del Sur

«Sonó el teléfono y supo que la iban a matar. Lo supo con tanta certeza que se quedó inmóvil, la cuchilla en alto, el cabello pegado a la cara entre el vapor del agua caliente que goteaba en los azulejos. Bip-bip. Se quedó muy quieta, conteniendo el aliento como si la inmovilidad o el silencio pudieran cambiar el curso de lo que ya había ocurrido. Bip-bip. Estaba en la bañera, depilándose la pierna derecha, el agua jabonosa por la cintura, y su piel desnuda se erizó igual que si acabara de reventar el grifo de agua fría. Bip-bip. En el estéreo del dormitorio, los Tigres del Norte cantaban historias de Camelia la Tejana. La traición y el contrabando, decían, son cosas incompartidas».

«Los lectores no podrán pasar las páginas lo suficientemente rápido. Una historia apasionante». (Publishers Weekly)

“The phone rang and she knew they were going to kill her. The certainty of it kept her motionless, blade high in the air, hair stuck to her face, a cloud of steam and drops of water cursing down the tiles. Blip, blip. Frozen, she held her breath as if the stillness, or the silence, could somehow change the course of the past. Blip, blip. She was sitting in the bathtub, in the middle of shaving her right leg, soapy water rising to her waist, her flesh full of goose-bumps the warm water did nothing to ease. Blip, blip. In her bedroom, the stereo blasted Los Tigres del Norte singing Camelia la Tejana –betrayal and contraband, they said, are like oil and vinegar.” So begins a journey that will transform this innocent barrio beauty into a woman who is tough and powerful enough to write her own rules.”

Internationally acclaimed writer Arturo Pérez-Reverte, author of The Club Dumas, has crafted another intense, dramatic, action-filled, literary suspense tale –this time his hero is a woman named Teresa Mendoza who is nicknamed "The Queen of the South" and "The Mexican" by the authorities of three continents. After her boyfriend, a pilot employed by drug lords, is murdered, she carves a place in the male-dominated world of drug trafficking creating an empire with mafias from Spain, France, Italy and Russia.