TULIA Race, Cocaine, and Corruption in a Small Texas Town NATE BLAKESLEE

"Tulia is an important book on politics, race, and hypocrisy that reads like a courtroom thriller."
--George Pelecanos, author of Drama City and Soul Circus

"When one of the most corrupt police officers in the country is named Officer of the Year, you know something has gone terribly wrong in the nation's war on drugs. Nate Blakeslee is the reporter who first broke the story of the dirty narc in the Texas panhandle and the conspiracy to keep his victims in prison. In Tulia, he tells us how it happened, but more than that, he explains why it happened. If you read just one book to understand what has gone wrong with narcotics enforcement in this country, read Tulia. It is a Fast Food Nation for the drug war."
--Ann Richards, former governor of Texas

"The story of the perversion of justice that took place in Tulia, Texas, belongs to Nate Blakeslee, the young journalist who found it, followed it, and pushed it into the national consciousness. Nate was editor of the Texas Observer when he came to Tulia one day, armed with a notebook and pencil, and started asking questions. What he exposed there led to a long struggle to free the victims of a racist frame-up, to unprecedented pardons, to a front-page photo in the New York Times the day the prisoners were finally freed and, ultimately, to changes in the law. Most of us like to think institutional racism in the South is dead, but this is one example of how common it remains. True, justice triumphs in the end, which is always nice, but Nate Blakeslee exposes even more here than a single frame-up by a bent narc. This is reporting at its best–detailed, in context and beautifully written."
--Molly Ivins

"In Tulia, Nate Blakeslee delivers a one-two punch of relentless reporting and heartfelt story-telling to show how a rogue undercover cop tramples justice and ruins dozens of innocent lives. By digging deep into the astonishingly corrupt 1999 drug bust in Tulia, Texas, Blakeslee meticulously exposes the underbelly of drug enforcement run amok and unchecked."
--Dick Lehr, author of Black Mass: The True Story of an Unholy Alliance Between the FBI and the Irish Mob