The red line

The author is joined by a retired narcotics cop as they investigate the assassination of a drug dealer and hit man outside Tucson, Arizona. One of Charles Bowden’s earliest books, Red Line powerfully conveys a desert civilization careening over the edge―and decaying at its center. Bowden’s quest for the literal and figurative truth behind the assassination of a murderous border-town drug dealer becomes a meditation on the glories of the desert landscape, the squalors of the society that threatens it, and the contradictions inherent in trying to save it. “At its best, Red Line can read like an original synthesis of Peter Matthiessen and William Burroughs . . . A brave and interesting book.” —David Rieff, Los Angeles Times Book Review “Charles Bowden’s Red Line is a look at America through the window of the southwest. His vision is as nasty, peculiar, brutal, as it is intriguing and, perhaps, accurate. Bowden offers consciousness rather than consolation, but in order to do anything about our nightmares we must take a cold look and Red Line casts the coldest eye in recent memory.” —Jim Harrison “The Southwest as portrayed in this Kerouac-esque odyssey betokening the death of the American frontier spirit is a landscape of broken dreams, violence, uprooted lives and fallen idols. . . . Miles distant from tourist-poster images of the Sunbelt, this vista of narrow greed, diminished expectations and despoilation of nature sizzles with the harsh, unrelenting glare of a hyperrealist painting.” — Publishers Weekly "WWIII explodes in this electrifying debut military thriller in the tradition of Red Storm Rising and The Third World War. "Delta-Two, I've got tanks through the wire! They're everywhere!" World War III explodes in seconds when a resurgent Russian Empire launches a deadly armored thrust into the heart of Germany. With a powerful blizzard providing cover, Russian tanks thunder down the autobahns while undercover Spetsnaz teams strike at vulnerable command points. Standing against them are the woefully undermanned American forces. What they lack in numbers they make up for in superior weapons and training. But before the sun rises they are on the run across a smoking battlefield crowded with corpses. Any slim hope for victory rests with one unlikely hero. Army Staff Sergeant George O'Neill, a communications specialist, may be able to reestablish links that have been severed by hostile forces, but that will take time. While he works, it's up to hundreds of individual American soldiers to hold back the enemy flood. There's one thing that's certain. The thin line between victory and defeat is also the red line between life and death"-- Provided by publisher “At its best, Red Line can read like an original synthesis of Peter Matthiessen and William Burroughs... a brave and interesting book.” —David Rieff, Los Angeles Times Book Review “Charles Bowden's Red Line is a look at America through the window of the southwest. His vision is as nasty, peculiar, brutal, as it is intriguing and, perhaps, accurate. Bowden offers consciousness rather than consolation, but in order to do anything about our nightmares we must take a cold look and Red Line casts the coldest eye in recent memory.” —Jim Harrison One of Charles Bowden's earliest books, Red Line powerfully conveys a desert civilization careening over the edge—and decaying at its center. Bowden's quest for the literal and figurative truth behind the assassination of a murderous border-town drug dealer becomes a meditation on the glories of the desert landscape, the squalors of the society that threatens it, and the contradictions inherent in trying to save it. In This Powerful Book, Bowden Ventures Through The Southwest In A Tangled Search For The Truth Behind The Assassination Of A Murderous Border-town Drug Dealer. Along The Way He Encounters High-rolling Developers, Ecological Activists, A Charismatic Archaeologist-sage, And Illegal Aliens In A Life-on-the-edge Trek That Brings You Into A Desert Civilization Careening Out Of Control And Decaying At Its Center. Charles Bowden ; Foreword By James Galvin. The First Edition Of Red Line Was Published By W. W. Norton & Company.