This is the type of book I wish there was a special bookshelf for in bookstores. It would magically be filled with unique one of a kind books that I would love to read and would find really interesting. It might be titled "books you will love be sure to. Buy more than one!"
Sadly this type of magic doesn't exist, not yet anyway.
The Coyotes Bicycle, let's face it, the title alone was enough to make me pick it up, is unlike any other book I have ever read. It is about:
1. Life along the U.S. Mexico border
2. A human smuggling operation
3. A Coyote ( human smuggler) with a 7th grade education, who was honest, trustworthy, kind, and one of the largest smugglers of people, in the busiest border area!
4. A cast of characters on both sides of the border, crazies, and misfits, and drunks, and men and woman trying to get by, trying to get ahead, trying for a better life.
5. A human smuggling operation, that used bicycles to get the people across/into the United States.
6. Bicycles that after they had been used by the coyote wound up on military bases around the world.
7. The attempt to track the bicycles.
This is an amazing, outstanding, fantastic book. ( )

The author is intrigued to find how discarded tires from the US make it to Mexico and then back to the US again, and then he discovers something that intrigues him even more – thousands of abandoned bicycles in the US, just across the border from Mexico.

This is an interesting book about the ingenuity and the industry of illegal immigration into the US. Living in a border state where the issue is contentious and divisive, I had to read this book.

The author follows the stories of coyotes, but also learns and explains the different jobs and specialties involved in the industry. And do not be fooled, it is definitely an industry. And, of course, information about the illegal drug industry has to enter the picture, but that is not the focus of this book.

There is a good deal of information about the “fence,” how it has been increased, how it has been thwarted. About deportation and multiple crossings.

And the journeys of the bicycles themselves was quite interesting, many of them ending up on US military war games, surprisingly enough.

“Border Patrol had recently dumped Ramon on the streets of Tijuana at two in the morning, and like most deportees, he didn't know where the hell he was. Southern Mexicans plucked from a dishwashing job in, say, Newark, New Jersey, and expelled upon the seediest part of a border town with neither connections nor a plan were sitting ducks and everybody knew it.”

I felt the author occasionally overwrote the story with flights of fancy:

“Plans; his clients carried them in their minds like the contents of a briefcase they'd pop open on the other side. And he recognized the look even as he hefted charcoal into the grill and tussled with an order of carnitas that he'd carried into the house like a fat child.”

The author tended to be a bit wordy, and went off on tangents, making this book longer than I felt it needed to be to tell the story well. And I do wish the author would learn that the phrase is “tract homes,” not “track homes.”

Because this book concentrates on some individuals, there are not too many of the heartbreaking stories of failed crossings, of people dying trying to cross by themselves or after being abandoned by coyotes.

Despite some flaws, this book is a fascinating look at illegal immigration using a method I didn't know about and from a unique perspective.

I received an advanced e-book copy of this book for review. ( )

The bicycles are simply the vehicles used to convey us through the stories of the migrants from Mexico. One thread of this story is that of Pablo, whose trip to the north was stalled in Tijuana. There are residents of Tijuana, and then there is a subculture of those looking for ways to leave.

There is also Roberto, who, it turned out, dreamed of being el coyote, and cross his people into what they viewed as the promised land of the United States. We also learn about the lives of those who live on the American side of the boarder and how their lives are different than most Americans due to the flow of migrants onto their land, and sometimes slipping through their lives, if only for brief moments.

Homeland Security, of course, is part of the story as is Boarder Patrol. Both institutions, like any other, having segments of the good the bad and the ugly. And of course, another thread that runs through the story is illegal drugs. While most of us know that every single day and night, people from south of our border dry to find ways to enter the country, we don't know the details. The fences, the guards, or the extreme acts of those from both sides. This book informs us of many of these details.

The number of people portrayed in this book is large and varied. Although the subject is serious, and so in fact is the book, it was mostly easy to stay involved in the story. There were portions that I found tedious, but all in all, this is a good read. ( )