Philip True was the epitome of a reporter's reporter, at least as described in this moving account of his murder in a remote corner of western Mexico, written by his editor at the San Antonio Express-News
, for which True was the Mexico City correspondent. In December 1998, despite a lack of editorial interest, True set off on a 10-day expedition into the canyons of the Sierra Madre, hoping to write a story on the region's Huichol Indians. Rivard's book follows the agonizing six-year-long process by which he and others worked to find out what happened to True. First, there was the discovery of True's hastily buried corpse (which Rivard helped dig out with his bare hands); then, the tortuous journey through the opaque Mexican legal system. Rivard thoroughly fleshes out True, a California hippie with a troubled upbringing who became an ace foreign correspondent, and such characters as the sullen Huichols accused of the murder, the delusional crusader defending them, and Mexican president Vicente Fox. Rivard's engaging, compassionate, though sometimes long-winded story goes beyond the tragedy of True's death to include the vast, beautiful and troubling world of Mexico itself, "where people are preyed on by the very forces that exist to protect them." Agent, Collins McCormick. (Nov.)
