The true story of two American teenagers turned cartel assassins—and the Mexican American detective who fought to stop them. Wolf Boys is “a hell of a story…undeniably gripping” (The New York Times), a harrowing nonfiction thriller that reads like a crime novel but is rooted in extraordinary investigative reporting.Journalist Dan Slater tells the unforgettable tale of Gabriel Cardona, a bright and promising Laredo, Texas, teenager who becomes one of the youngest hitmen for Los Zetas, Mexico’s most violent drug cartel. Lured by power, money, and survival in a border town overrun with smuggling and gang warfare, Gabriel joins a network of juvenile recruits tasked with carrying out executions on both sides of the US–Mexico border.As cartel warfare spills into Texas, the story collides with that of Detective Robert Garcia, a Mexican-born homicide investigator who has dedicated his life to keeping cartel violence out of the United States.With chilling precision and emotional depth, Wolf Boys exposes how teens become soldiers in a global drug war, and how law enforcement, outmatched and outgunned, is forced to confront a rising wave of youth-led organized crime.At once intimate and explosive, Wolf Boys is a devastating account of the real-life consequences of America’s war on drugs—and the price paid by its youngest victims.