In the Mouth of the Wolf

Former AP Mexico bureau chief Katherine Corcoran’s pulsating investigation into the murder of a legendary woman journalist on the verge of exposing government corruption in Mexico.

Regina Martínez was no stranger to retaliation. A journalist out of Mexico’s Gulf Coast state of Veracruz, whose stories laid out corruption, abuse, and the general underside of Mexican politics to a national audience, Martínez was regularly barred from press conferences. Copies of her newspaper Proceso often disappeared before they made the newsstands. In 2012, just as she uncovered damning evidence about the disappearance of thousands of Mexican people, Regina was murdered in cold blood. The message was clear: No journalist in Mexico was safe.

Katherine Corcoran, then leading the Associated Press coverage of Mexico, was a big supporter of Martínez’s work. Distraught by the news of her death, Corcoran journeyed to Veracruz to find out what had happened. Once there, she bonded with four of Regina’s grief-stricken mentees, each desperate to prove who was to blame for the death of their friend. Together they battled cover-ups, cartel bosses, red tape, and death threats to sift through the mess of lies—and discover the story Regina died protecting.

A gripping look at reporters who dare to step on the deadly “third rail,” where the state and organized crime have become indistinguishable, In the Mouth of the Wolf confronts how silencing the free press threatens basic protections and rule of law across the globe.