Mexican Federal Agent Marcos Camarena dedicated his life to the job. But in a country where white knights die meaningless deaths, martyred in a hole with fifty other headless bodies in the desert, corruption is not an attribute but a scale; no longer a stigma but the status quo.

When Marcos's life is threatened, he leaves law enforcement and his life in Mexico City behind for a coastal resort town-until an old friend asks him to look after an outspoken politician, a woman who knows cartel violence all too well. Despite his best efforts, Marcos can't find it in his heart to refuse, and soon finds himself isolated on the political front lines of the war on drugs.

Inspired by true events, Federales is a story of survivors' compulsive devotion to a cause in the face of ever-darkening circumstances. What folks are saying.

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"Christopher Irvin s FEDERALES is an absolute gut-punch of a novella. The story of one man s search for redemption and justice within a Mexican system that has long-forgotten the meaning of either will haunt you long after the last page is turned.

"-Todd Robinson, author of The Hard Bounce"FEDERALES is a sweaty, feverish sojourn into a fetid limb of the Mexican drug war, where sentiment, principles and fellow feeling have no place. Christopher Irvin's read will carry you swiftly through to the fitting end.

"-Sam Hawken, author of The Dead Women of Juárez"In his debut novella, Christopher Irvin deftly captures the frustration and futility of the Mexican Drug War. Part character study, part thriller, FEDERALES reads as a brutally human parable that tells a story that is sadly all too real.

"-Johnny Shaw, Anthony Award-winning author of Big Maria and Dove Season. .