The Rules of Wolfe

Wolfe Family Series #2

by James Carlos Blake, David DeSantos (Reading)

Eddie Gato Wolfe is a young, impetuous member of the Wolfe clan of Texas gun-runners and bootleggers that goes back generations. Increasingly unfulfilled by his minor role in family operations and eager to set out on his own, Eddie crosses the border to work security for a major Mexican drug cartel led by the ruthless La Navaja. At a party, Eddie falls for a beautiful woman named Miranda, whom he learns too late is the girlfriend of El Segundo, La Navaja's only living brother. When El Segundo finds Eddie and Miranda together, Eddie is given no choice but to kill him, forcing the two lovers to flee the cartel in hopes of crossing the border and reuniting with the Wolfe family. But La Navaja's reach is far and his lust for revenge insatiable. He sends a horde of operatives and the notorious bounty hunter El Martillo after the pair. If La Navaja's men don't kill Eddie and Miranda, the brutal Mexican desert just may. Their only hope: help from the family that Eddie abandoned.

Genres: Fiction, Thriller, Crime, Noir, Audiobook, Mystery Thriller

Audio CD

Published July 2, 2013

About the author

James Carlos Blake was an American writer of novels, novellas, short stories, and essays. His work has received extensive critical favor and several notable awards. He has been called “one of the greatest chroniclers of the mythical American outlaw life” as well as “one of the most original writers in America today and … certainly one of the bravest.” He was a recipient of the University of South Florida's Distinguished Humanities Alumnus Award and a member of the Texas Institute of Letters.

Reviews

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Rules of Wolfe – Unique and Brilliant

James Carlos Blake returns with another outstanding crime thriller or as billed border noir with The Rules of Wolfe, which is simply unique and brilliant. This is a fast paced taut thriller whose prose is muscular and it literally drips from every page dancing on the edge of civilisation. The prose gives us very clear and strong imagery we get a thriller that is violent, dark, sexy and wonderfully exciting. No words are wasted and there is no padding out the story in 258 pages Blake delivers a knockout blow after knockout blow. This is a thrilling read from start to finish that brings in the Mexican cartels and American smugglers and everything in between and surviving in the border badlands when being hunted like an animal.

Eddie Gato Wolfe wants to join the family firm and quit college, but he keeps getting told no by the whole of the family. He just cannot wait he learns what he can where he can so that he can prove himself and the family still want him to go back to college and get a degree that will not help one iota with the job. He heads south from the Texas family base down to Mexico and finds a position as a guard of a compound out in the isolated desert for the head of a Cartel known as the Company. The Company is lead by La Navaja who has a reputation for being ruthless and a very long reach.

Eddie has been told what the guards can and cannot do; approaching the guests and the Boss is one of them. Eddie falls for a girl, but not any girl, the Boss’s brother’s girl Miranda. When they are caught together he knows his only hope of survival for both of them is to get out of Mexico and in to the States. Only problem being is that there are hundreds of miles of desert between them and freedom.

Being hunted by the Company he reaches out for help to get him out of Mexico and so begins a race against time for Eddie and Miranda can they survive will they get out? As they escape the body count goes up and the Boss pulls out all the stops to find them. Whether they get out in one piece is part of the thrill as Eddie and Miranda crash through the desert in their desperate hope of survival.

This is one of the most original and exciting crime thrillers of the year that delivers on every count for the reader. No punches are pulled it is bloody and violent a true mirror of life under the cartels in Mexico. The prose gives out the such strong imagery of the sights, sounds and smells of the survival when you are being hunted like wild game. The descriptions that Blake gives are so clear you could be seeing this on the big screen and the violence is so bloody yet exciting. Reading this will give you the regret that you hadn’t found this book earlier.

[Larry · Rating 5 out of 5]

James Carlos Blake’s The Rules of Wolfe is a crime noir novel of a family, the Wolfe family, with members of that family, both in Texas and Mexico, dealing in the weapons trade and supplying Mexican narcotrafficantes with guns. Given that dark story, it’s hard to find any heroes in the book.

The novel was shortlisted for the CWA Goldsboro Gold Dagger Award) The story is great, one of survival as a young man who is part of the Wolfe family goes to work with the Sinaloa cartel. It doesn’t take long before he makes a cardinal mistake, getting involved with the mistress of one of the leaders of that cartel. Once this is discovered, he and the woman are on the run, trying to stay alive as they are tracked by the cartel. The book is like one of those B movies of the 1950s done perfectly. It’s as a hot as the Mexican desert and the chase through that desert is an exciting epic. I’ll look for more books by Blake about the Wolfe family. (There are two others, one that explores the beginning of the families involvement in Mexico in the days of Pancho Villa.)

Recommended ... if you can tolerate the violence.

[John McKenna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mysterious Book Report No. 151
by John Dwaine McKenna
The roughly 2,400 mile long imaginary line which separates the US from Mexico encompasses an area known as the borderlands. It’s been disputed, fought over and illegally crossed in both directions for as long as it’s been drawn. It separates the haves from the have-nots and represents two uniquely different cultures, each of which has its own customs and laws. But in the borderland, those differences are crushed together and blended into something that combines parts of both yet all of neither. They are the rules of the borderlands.
The Rules of Wolfe, (Mysterious Press, $24.00, 258 pages, ISBN 978-0-8021-2129-5) by James Carlos Blake, shines a masterful and well written light, in the form of an entertaining crime fiction novel, on the borderlands and the “ultra-violent Mexican drug trade” taking place there. The brutality is mind-numbing, but Blake’s prose is written with such artistic grace that the reader can’t wait to look at the next page. Set in the present-day, The Rules of Wolfe tell the story of a young ambitious member of a trans-border crime family, who runs afoul of Mexican drug lords while trying to make his bones as a worthy member of the Wolfe clan. The Wolfe’s, some of whom live in Mexico and others in the United States, have a long and colorful history in the area, going back to the first quarter of the ninetieth century. They’ve grown wealthy over the last two hundred years by smuggling guns, liquor and any other contraband that’s profitable, back and forth through the borderlands. They manage to pull this off despite being gringos, by their reputation for fair dealing and, when necessary, ruthless warfare. If you’re not familiar with James Carlos Blake it’s not surprising. He’s only written nine novels, but each one is outstanding. Read his latest and learn why Kirkus Reviews calls him “The poet of the damned who writes like an angel.”
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[Paul Cornelius · Rating 5 out of 5]

With The Rules of Wolfe, James Carlos Blake takes up the continuing story of the Wolfe clan just about a century after he concluded the first novel in the series, Country of the Bad Wolfes. The connecting character is 109 year-old Catalina, who was last seen in the first novel, escaping a death squad sent to wipe out all the remaining Wolfes who had relocated from Mexico to Texas. The story fits right in with other Blake works. It's violent, fast paced yet, at the end, thought provoking.

Spaced only over a long weekend, The Rules of Wolfe explodes into a bloodbath all because of the rage induced in the Wolfe family's youngest member, Eddie Gato. Brought to work security at the remote ranch of a Mexican drug lord, Eddie meets up with one of the "girlfriends" brought in to service the cartel's management. Eddie cuts out Miranda from the rest, and she ends up being the abused girlfriend of the drug lord's brother and second in command. Out of a slight to her, Eddie goes to war against the entire cartel. Everything arises out of his outraged sense of dishonor.

That is typical of Blake's novels. Outraged honor, acted upon in a violent borderland between Texas and Mexico, that has consequences unimaginable when compared to their origins. Cartel and family members already have wealth beyond their needs, if not beyond their imagination. But there is never enough. Just as there never seems to be enough symbols of authority or dominance over other criminals or cartels. What Blake lifts the hood on is just how much greed and narcissism can dominate people's lives. Even to the point that it leads to their early deaths and torture. Nobody has the sense to retire from the field of combat. They all struggle to the end. And that includes the role assumed by 109 year old Catalina.

When reading Blake, most of the settings he describes seem familiar to me, whether in Mexico or Texas. I can easily see them, feel them. But while I am also aware of the violence that springs from this world, that part of it is still a secret to me. Blake uncovers these secrets. He animates the headlines common in newspapers and television, the headless corpses, the cartel wars, the seething violence that only needs someone giving you a wrong look that can get you killed. Life is tenuous. And it need not be so, but for primitive instincts of human beings.

[Paul Finch · Rating 4 out of 5]

WARNING FOR MINOR SPOILERS

One of the deadliest of the Mexican crime syndicates is the Sinaloa Cartel. Though their home-base is located on Mexico’s west coast, the power they wield is felt nationwide, a grip of fear which is enhanced by the influence they exert over government offices, both local and national, and multiple police departments.

Fall out with the Sinas, and you’re in big trouble. Controlled by two uber-ruthless brothers, La Navaja and his younger lieutenant, El Segundo, both of whom rose to prominence on a tide of extreme violence, the Sinas are renowned for the horrific punishments they will visit on anyone who displeases them. From decapitation, to burning, to being drowned in barrels of rum, even the slightest infraction against their rock-solid rules can invoke the most draconian reprisals.

So, it probably isn’t a good time for young Eddie Porter, aka Eddie Gato Wolfe, a handsome young syndicate soldier of Mexican/American descent, to be assigned guard duty at one of the Sinas’ pleasure ranches in the desert. If it isn’t bad enough that it’s out in the middle of nowhere, there are yet more of those damn rules: the guards are occasionally allowed to visit the local villages and let their hair down, but when they’re on duty, which is the bulk of their time, there is a strict no-drinking and no-whoring order.

Eddie almost goes crazy as he stands and watches while flotillas of Sinaloan underbosses and their sexy consorts come and go, carousing all night and indulging in swimming pool parties that turn into orgies. He is particularly agonised when he sets eyes on the beautiful Miranda, who seems aloof from the other girls, and on the few occasions when he makes eye-contact with her, proves to be friendlier than most. This is not a good thing, because Eddie, an inveterate womaniser back home, simply can’t resist a lovely young girl. In due course, he contrives to introduce himself to Miranda. He’s an arch-seducer, but though he doesn’t expect that she’ll be an easy catch, she falls into his arms with remarkable speed – because gorgeous though she is, Miranda has led a life of abuse and exploitation, and desperately seeks affection.

The star-crossed duo sense that they’ll soon mean more to each other than a quick lay, but their first tryst ends in disaster when it is interrupted by El Segundo himself, who regards Miranda as his personal property.

In the ensuing fight – because Eddie has no choice but to fight – the Sinaloan No. 2 is killed.

Knowing there will only be one outcome from this, and that it won’t be over quickly, Eddie and Miranda flee the ranch, and head across the sun-scorched badlands of the Sonora desert, optimistically thinking that they just might make it to the Arizona border before their offence is discovered. Needless to say, they are wrong, and pretty soon the full wrath of the Sinas is unleashed in pursuit, including the lethal bounty-hunter, El Martillo, and his sidekick, El Pico, a top-notch tracker and incurable bar-room philosopher.

The odds are stacked against Eddie and Miranda, who from the get-go travel with a fatalistic air, as if it will only be a matter of time before they are snared. However, they do have one advantage. Eddie is related to the Wolfe clan, a smaller crime syndicate, whose main gig is weapons-smuggling, and who are transnational in nature, which means they contain both Mexican and American personnel, and their activities straddle the Border. As soon as Wolfe clan matriarch, centenarian Aunt Catalina, hears about Eddie’s plight, she sends two of her favourite nephews, Rudy and Frank, to assist. They might be less professional than El Martillo and El Pico, but they too are good at what they do.

The Sinas have their rules, and perhaps the most famous is that when someone defies you, he/she dies. But the Wolfes have strict rules too, not least that when one of theirs is in trouble, they bring him safely home …

There is no doubt that the Mexican crime cartels are among the most frightening in the modern world. With their immensely long reach, and a willingness to use unprecedented levels of grotesque violence – not just to enforce their will on rival mobsters, but to terrorise the civilian population as well – they are a crime author’s dream.

It may be a tad insensitive to put it in those terms, but they really are. As monstrous opponents go in crime fiction, the Mexican cartels are a genuinely terrifying presence even on the written page. But I don’t think I’ve ever seen them as deadly as they are here in The Rules of Wolfe.

And it is this which provides the concrete base for this searingly intense piece of border noir.

You can’t help feeling for young heroes, Eddie and Miranda. Though they’ve undoubtedly been naïve idiots by inviting this disaster into their lives, they are up against monumental opposition. Not just because the Sinas are so powerful, but because they also must escape across Mexico’s sun-baked badlands, and then make it over the border, which in itself is a huge thing. The hardships that befall them know no end: dust storms, heat, thirst, highway robbers, corrupt cops.

Despite all this, they manage to maintain their good humour and their love for each other, and such is the skill of James Carlos Blake’s writing that they don’t to this unconvincingly. They get battered and hurt, they’re constantly frightened. Miranda transforms from seductive beauty into exhausted roadside wastrel. Eddie goes from cocky young buck to responsible (but somewhat grizzled) adult, as he isn’t just physically injured, but tortured by the knowledge that he’s been the instigator of this terror. And yet still they press on, looking out for each other, sharing a quick kiss on those few occasions when they get the chance. This stoical determination to spend the rest of their lives together is genuinely heart-wrenching, too – because all the way through you have an overarching suspicion that it’s unlikely to happen.

In comparison, on the US side of the border, trouble-shooting cousins, Frank and Rudy, are less colourfully drawn, but if this is a weakness, it’s only a minor one. In essence, they too are syndicate operatives, but though they regularly do business with Mexican mobsters, their trade is in guns rather than drugs or people. However, in the fashion of the Old West, because Frank and Rudy, and all the rest of the Wolfes, can trace their roots back to a hard-bitten Tex/Mex family who were here in the bad old days, they are no strangers to lawlessness when it suits them. They keep it low key, but they have their own rules and their own family loyalties – as embodied by Wolfe clan matriarch, Aunt Catalina, who is vividly portrayed by Blake despite making only a couple of appearances. Even so, it’s a big thing to challenge the Sinas. They go about it in workmanlike fashion, dealing professionally with each situation (some of which are pretty visceral, so be warned!), and you certainly get the feeling that if anyone can help Eddie and Miranda, it’s going to be Frank and Rudy – but you can’t imagine that even these two will emerge from this conflict unscathed.

And it’s in this driving, ferocious narrative where the book really comes alive.

Blake rattles the action scenes at us like machine-gun bullets, working each violent encounter tirelessly to create non-stop tension and fear. And even when Eddie and Miranda aren’t involved in blazing gun-battles, when they’re waiting in cantina car parks, for example, or moving in slow, heavy traffic, there is an atmosphere of fast-encroaching evil, a sense that even if the nice-looking family in the next car could be sadistic killers just awaiting their moment. But there is also a darker depth to this book, a strand of undercutting despair, because this kind of thing is all-too-real in modern day Mexico, and this is reflected in the deep seriousness with which Blake treats his subject-matter (Kirkus didn’t refer to him as ‘the poet of the damned, who writes like an angel’ for nothing). The killers are depicted through a near-true crime lens, the manner in which they soullessly go about their terrible business – dismembering and beheading with neither deranged glee nor gut-thumping horror, but emotionlessly, doing what they do simply because they’ve following orders and can’t conceive of anything else – more than hints at real life atrocities.

On which subject, Blake also handles the crossing of the US/Mexican border with real expertise, painting a harrowing picture of the dangers that migrants routinely face, primarily from the criminal classes who encircle this sort of activity like sharks, but also from unsympathetic officialdom. It’s a sobering lesson in this era when so many of us are casually annoyed by the sight of migrants attempting to force illegal entry into other countries without any real clue what they might be fleeing.

I really enjoyed The Rules of Wolfe. I’ve seen it mentioned alongside such classics of the dope wars as Don Winslow’s The Power of the Dog and The Cartel, and while I wouldn’t perhaps go that far, because yes, this is at heart a rollicking action-thriller, it also has those other dimensions of cruelty and darkness which put it up there among the very meanest of its kind.

[Laura Jean · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was expecting this book to start where the last one left off.

Instead, it takes place at the present. Only half way through the book do you find out what happened to Catalina and even then the past is recalled in a couple of swift flash backs. Nothing is explained in detail.

Although initially disappointed, I quickly over came that and simply enjoyed the book. It contained much more action than the first book and I think the author's writing progressed. It was really well written and I loved his descriptions of the desert.

[David Kinchen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've heard of "border radio" but "Border Noir" -- part of the title of James Carlos Blake's "The Rules of Wolfe: A Border Noir" -- is a designation new to me. The thriller deals with the Rio Grande Valley-based (in Texas we call it simply "The Valley") Wolfe family of gunrunners and smugglers with operations in the northern Mexican drug cartel states of Tamaulipas and Nuevo Leon, among other locales.

The Wolfe family, blended Anglos and Hispanics like much of south Texas, has rules, but family member Eddie Gato Wolfe is eager to get on with his life, feeling shackled by the family's slow-going, traditional ways and emphasis on higher education at institutions like Louisiana State University. Eddie's impetuousness leads him to leave the relative safety of the Texas side of the border to work security for a drug cartel led by La Navaja.

Driven by the unbridled testosterone of youth, Eddie falls for a mysterious woman named Miranda, whom he learns too late is the property of an intimate member of La Navaja’s organization. When they're discovered, the violent upshot forces Eddie and Miranda to run for their lives, fleeing into the deadly Sonoran Desert in hope of crossing the border to safety. Eddie is familiar with the subtropical climate of Cameron County (Brownsville and vicinity) but the heat and obstacles of the Sonoran Desert are an elevated level of difficulty as Eddie and Miranda try to evade the operatives, including bounty hunter El Martillo, that La Navaja sends after the fleeing pair. If their pursuers don't get them, the killer desert might accomplish the task.

Eddie's family attempts to make contact with him, but the obstacles are daunting. I found the narrative and the dialogue capable of sustaining interest -- only if you're interested in brutal cartels and their savage ways.

More often than not, reading the news accounts of the sordid goings on in places like Matamoros and Nuevo Laredo is enough for me, without adding a fictional account like "The Rules of Wolfe." Balancing this negativity on my part is the wonderful writing by Blake, a man who has written almost a dozen novels and knows the terrain and the people of South Texas and northern Mexico intimately. If I'm forced to compare Blake with any other writer I've read and enjoyed, it would be Robert Olen Butler, whose "The Hot Country" I read, enjoyed and reviewed last October (link: http://www.huntingtonnews.net/45469). By the way, Butler has a new Christopher Marlowe Cobb (the protagonist of "The Hot Country") historical thriller, "The Star of Istanbul", due this October.

[The Cannibal · Rating 4 out of 5]

On aurait pu nommer ce roman noir "La bite à Eduardo" parce que c'est à cause de ses pulsions sexuelles qu'il va se retrouver dans de sales draps et à cause de lui, les cadavres vont se ramasser à la pelle.

Bon, tant que ce sont ceux des membres d'un gang, on s'en moque, mais il y a des innocents qui vont y laisser leur peau à cause du fait qu'Eddie s'est retrouvé en leur compagnie.

James Carlos Blake ne perd pas de temps en palabres inutiles, directement on plonge dans le quotidien des trafiquants et il ne traîne pas non plus pour lancer son histoire : Eddie tue un homme, le second du gang, et se retrouve avec tout le monde à son cul.

À un moment j'ai eu un peu peur : l'auteur n'allait tout de même pas me remplir 230 pages de courses-poursuites, tout de même ?? Hé oh, je n'ai pas la condition physique pour cavaler sur autant de pages, moi ! J'ai même pas mon permis de conduire comme une sauvage pour semer les poursuivants, moi !

Femme de peu de foi que j'étais… Alors oui, on aura de la course-poursuite, mais pas que ! Parce qu'au travers de la fuite d'Eddie et de Miranda, la gonzesse pour qui il a tué, on aura aussi un portrait des gangs qui pullulent et polluent le Mexique, de leurs moeurs, de leurs méthodes d'action, ainsi que sur les passeurs qui tentent de faire entrer clandestinement des gens aux États-Unis.

Les personnages sont réalistes, même les trafiquants, quels que soient leur bord, alors qu'on devrait taper sur la tête d'Eddie, on se surprend à avoir de l'affection pour ce gamin qui, bien que n'ayant pas voulu faire d'études, a tout de même compris comment marchaient les cartels, les gangs, les mafieux et comment il fallait la jouer pour s'en sortir en perdant le moins de plumes possibles.

Mais on en perd toujours…

Un roman noir fort sombres, sur quelques pratiques des membres de gangs qui, quand ils ne sont pas contents, vous éparpillent véritablement façon puzzle, à tel point que votre femme pourrait retrouver votre langue dans le pot de confiture…

Un roman noir haletant, entrecoupé de scènes de vie traditionnelles du gang familial Wolfe, qui, bien que n'étant pas des enfants de coeur, sont tout de même un peu plus sympas que les autres.

Un roman noir qui t'expliquera aussi que le port du gilet pare-balles est de rigueur quand il pleut des balles et qu'il ne faut jamais, mais alors là jamais, chier dans les bottes d'un chef ! Et ne jamais décevoir son personnel non plus… Et ne pas faire confiance à un membre d'un autre clan !

Ne faites confiance à personne, même pas à moi qui vous conseille ce livre. On ne sait jamais, je pourrais être de mèche avec l'un ou l'autre gang…

[Robert Intriago · Rating 4 out of 5]

Completely different than the first in the series. The first book was more a historical fiction of Mexico after the Mexican American war. This book is more an action book involving the Wolfes and the Little family. This book reminds me a little of Savages’ “The Cartel” as it involves the Sinaloa cartel, the Zetas and assorted drug runners. The story revolves around one of the Wolfes killing a cartel member and his attempt to escape punishment aided by the rest of the Wolfe family. It is full of action and a page turner. The characters are a little weak with the exception of ”Aunt Cat”. The author does a good job of connecting some of the family ties back to the original book but the family has grown so much that it can be confusing putting it together. For those of you that have read Ace Atkins’ Quinn Colson series, in book 4, he has Colson reading James Carlos Blake.

[Rob · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you’re a James Carlos Blake fan (“Wildwood Boys,” “In the Rogue Blood,” “The Friends of Pancho Villa”), you’ll add “The Rules of Wolfe” to your list of favorite books this year. It’s a fast paced, high drama, Mexican drug cartel blood bath, not for the faint of heart. Blake remains one of my favorite authors. If you’ve never read him, try “Wildwood Boys,” a strong five-star novel set in pre-Civil War days dealing with the Kansas border wars. Think of Blake as Cormac McCarthy, but on steroids.

[Dennis Billuni · Rating 5 out of 5]

James Carlos Blake brings the Wolfe family into the 21st century and gives the reader another insightful look into the world of the outlaw with all its brutality, betrayal, family loyalty, and death. It's a good idea to read this novel's precursor, "Country of the Bad Wolfes," which will give the reader a much more fulfilling experience when reading "The Rules of Wolfe."

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quick, but predictable & not as good as other JCB novels.

[Karl Elvis MacRae · Rating 5 out of 5]

I want an entire series featuring these characters. Truly entertaining and original execution. Love this writer.,

[Barry Martin Vass · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an absorbing tale of organized crime around the U.S./Mexico border. The Wolfes are a family of smugglers. They have enclaves in Cameron County, Texas, the last county in Texas and right next to the Gulf of Mexico, and Mexico City. They won't touch drugs or people, but anything else is fair game - weapons, explosives, electronics, booze - and they've been at it for generations. They have a number of rules, one of which is: you can't join the family "enterprise" until you have at least a bachelor's degree from college. Some have gone further - the family has its own doctors, lawyers, accountants, etc - but you have to have at least a bachelor's. But Eddie Gato Wolfe, a young sharpshooter who is good with his fists, doesn't see the need for college. He wants into the family business now. But since his elders won't let him, he takes a well-paying job as a security guard at a remote farm in the Mexican desert. At first it seems like the most boring job imaginable, but every three or four months there are wild parties with the most beautiful women Eddie's ever seen. Turns out the hacienda is the property of the Sinaloa cartel, and the women are the property of the bosses. Which turns out badly for Eddie when he seduces one of the women and is discovered by the second-in-command. Bolting from the ranch, and with virtually every member of the syndicate gunning for him, Eddie is desperate to find a way out of the mess he's created. Strong action and breath-taking suspense makes The Rules of Wolfe one of the better action/adventure tales around today. And with all the rhetoric about border security and Trump screaming about a border wall, this will open a few eyes. Here's an example of the writing: "He drove us all around, showing us this and that, including the fence - made mostly of old sheet metal panels - separating the gringo and Mexican Nogales. The fence runs for a few miles through the hills east and west of the towns, but doesn't do much to slow the wetback traffic, as the coyotes simply take their chickens to crossing points beyond the ends of the fence. Felix said there are parts of the border with only a single strand of wire to step over or duck under, and in some places there's no fence at all, not for miles. Only a sign here and there to denote the boundary line."

[Maxwell · Rating 4 out of 5]

The second in Blake's series about my new favorite organized crime family. The wolfe's have been around gun trafficing on the the Texas border for several generations. They have survived through a combination of wits, intestinal fortitude, downright meanness, and a set of family rules to keep them out of trouble. The rules were learned through hard fought experience. When 19 year old Eddie Wolfe wants to violate one of the family rules (you can't go into the family business until you graduate college), Eddie runs away south of the border to work for a crime family to get experience in the smuggling trade. Of course, he starts having an affair with an attractive woman (who is a kidnapped mistress for a gang leader) and ends up murdering the big Boss's brother when he gets caught. The rest of the book is about how Eddie evades the gang and tries to sneak across the border back into TX. Once again, the Wolfe family takes care of their own and they send a couple of well armed brothers to go save Eddie. Blake's dialogue, landscape descriptions, and colorful characters make The Rules of Wolfe a fun read. Needless to say, Eddie learns the wisdom of the Wolfe family rules after being chased by cartel members all over Mexico.

[Lt. Herrera · Rating 5 out of 5]

Drug People Make Me Puke

JCB is one of my all-time favorites, but there were things about this I didn't like: too much Mexican crap (burritos, tamales, and all that malarkey); too much drooling over what's supposed to be "hot chicks" (but anyone who's spent any time in these places know they all look like a spoiled, but greasy, canteloupe); and worst of all ...

Wise Old Grandma Who Knows Stuff By Telepathy Or Some Other Wise Old Grandma Bullshit Method.

I've got a feeling she's gonna poke her ugly old head in the subsequent Wolfe books too. Oh well.

I also have to pick a side when I read a book and this reminds me of the Pancho Villa book -- where it was nearly impossible to choose one piece-of-shit over the other.

But this was a really good action story. I'm gonna read all of them.

Everyone in this book has a pair.

[Katherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked THE HOUSE OF WOLFE so much that I'll be reading ALL the Wolfe books and trying the author's other novels. THE RULES OF WOLFE is billed as Border Noir and it is indeed. It is dark, gritty, and violent, with fascinating outlaws in the Wolfe family. It has plenty of suspense, action, and great character development. I found myself thoroughly on the Wolfe's side and not because they are the good guys. They ARE the least bad of the families involved - outlaws, instead of a murderous drug cartel. I think we all have a secret fascination with outlaws - people living by their own rules. The setting is evocative - borderland Texas and Mexico. As a native Texan barely knowledgeable of this area, it rings authentic.

[Lt. Herrera · Rating 5 out of 5]

Drug People Make Me Puke

JCB is one of my all-time favorites, but there were things about this I didn't like: too much Mexican crap (burritos, tamales, and all that malarkey); too much drooling over what's supposed to be "hot chicks" (but anyone who's spent any time in these places know they all look like a spoiled, but greasy, canteloupe); and worst of all ...

Wise Old Grandma Who Knows Stuff By Telepathy Or Some Other Wise Old Grandma Bullshit Method.

I also have to pick a side when I read a book and this reminds me of the Pancho Villa book -- where it was nearly impossible to choose one piece-of-shit over the other.

But this was a really good action story. I'm gonna read all of them.

[Paul Wilner · Rating 4 out of 5]

I just got turned on to Blake, but this is excellent; looking forward to reading others in the "Wolfe'' series and his other work.

Deals with some of the same material as Don Winslow in "The Cartel,'' etc., but to my mind the characters are better developed; while still (a little) less gory, there's less about the machinations of the drug trade, more about the people who are involved in it, and the Wolfe family's dynamics. There are smart, unpretentious, references to Hemingway throughout, but Blake is a writer who's savvy enough not to overplay his hand. Well done.

[Linda Meier · Rating 1 out of 5]

If you like a book with a lot of the "F" word and other rough language, especially towards women, this book is for you. I found it crass and offensive. The entire story was an escape/chase scene--much too long and drawn out. Too much violence, too many guns. I'm not sure how so many readers gave this such a high rating. The only reason I didn't quit reading it early on was that I wanted to know how it was all going to end. Too bad for me. Disappointing ending!

[Sean Myles · Rating 5 out of 5]

A gritty fast paced thriller

A great read of the life within criminal gangs. Very fast paced and graphic writing that gets you on the side of the bad guys. Seems to be realistic factually and as such is pretty scary about the reality of encounters with gang life. The story has a satisfactory ending with space for a crime opera series. A very enjoyable read for me.

[Mike Vines · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great author, terrific series featuring the Wolfe family and their history in Mexico and the borderlands of the US. Topical and violent, one must abide by the Wolfe rules... Mr. Blake's body of work is impressive and needs your exploration. Highest recommendation! Remember to shop your local bookstores. They need your support.

[Jon · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was my first Blake novel. It was on a list of the best gangster books ever written. I disagree. I`m not even sure i would call it a gangster novel. It does deal with the cartel and a family of gun runners cross paths. It starts well. But seemed like a simple and overplayed plot. I will try book 2 to see if it imp.

[Diogenes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Contemporary cartel thriller. Some books are hard to put down, this one is impossible to let go. So addicting that I'm quickly getting the other two Wolfes and the rest of Blake's books. Imagine a mixture of Elmore Leonard and Don Winslow with Donald Westlake added. Superb.

[Lou Michels · Rating 4 out of 5]

An Entertaining Group of Characters

A sparse writing style captures the essence of a modern crime family in this very enjoyable book. Blake has created a credible world of crime and punishment in the Southwest.

[Jc · Rating 2 out of 5]

I thought this would be a sequel of Country of the Bad Wolfes. It is but several generations later as it is set today rather than the in 19th century. We follow Eddie’s problems with the Sinas cartel in Mexico. This is all a bit extreme loke the previous one but not as good.

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really good read. Will move on to the follow up.

[Craigtator · Rating 2 out of 5]

Apparently Cormac McCarthy and Mario Puzo had a love child.

[Alan Fitzgerald · Rating 5 out of 5]

A violent, Mexican crime, on the run story. Well written with sparse language. I thoroughly enjoyed it and will be reading more from the author.

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not as good as the first in the series but ok