Title: Crossing To Kill
Author/Artist: Simon Whitechapel
Publisher: Virgin
Media: Book
Reviewer: Pan
This is without doubt the most un-genre true crime book I've ever read. As a long time fan of Simon Whitechapel's writing, I have to admit that I was slightly disappointed with this book. It covers the unbelievable spate of serial killings in the Mexican border town of Ciudad Juarez, a truly phenomenal death count that continues to rise despite the best efforts of the Mexican authorities and their US advisors.
Whitechapel turns his gaze at the living conditions in the town, particularly of the young women who have flocked to the city to gain employment in the US factories sited there to avoid having to pay US salaries and meet the more stringent environmental and social demands of the world's 'first nation'. In what is the best part of the book, Whitechapel's righteous anger at the conditions imposed on the work-force makes for grim but crucial reading.
Later in the book Whitechapel gives free range to his interests as he digresses from the subject and looks at some of his favourite obsessions, from the Marquis de Sade to the Roman emperor Heliogabulus. More controversially he makes comments about women and gays which are provocative in the extreme. I can see what he's driving at to some extent, but I find myself disagreeing violently with his views. But he does pose an interesting question: we know from lab experiments that animals kept in lab conditions suffer physiological changes to the brain. Permanent submission causes damage. What happens to those who are permanently in control? Does dominance also cause physiological change? What does this mean in our lives day-to-day?
In the final analysis, I think that for any true crime fans looking for a definitive work on the Ciudad Juarez murders will have to wait. As an insight what globalisation means to the working class of Mexico, particularly working class women, then the early chapters of the book have a lot to offer.
The body count continues to rise, the case is still open. For Simon Whitechapel fans, myself included, this is book is essential reading, for true crime fans I'm not so sure.