The Dead Sleep Easy

Everyone just calls him The Champ -- because that's what he was, once.

Twenty years ago, he crossed the border the wrong way, a young gringo with stars in his eyes. He became a star of the Lucha Libre -- Mexican wrestling -- but he lost control for a moment. Broke a guy's neck. And the guy just happened to be the nephew of the local mob boss.

The Champ has spent most of the last two decades paying for that mistake, working for the mob. He's done it all: enforcement, collections, assassinations, and underground bare knuckle fights where people bet on men like roosters. What he hasn't done, he's seen. He thought nothing could shock him.

He thought wrong.

The mob is deep in the pollero (human smuggling) business. About a million Mexicans cross the border into the States every year. The polleros charge $1200 a head or more to get them there. You do the math. It's a big enough business that the mob has partnered with a bloodthirsty splinter group of the Minutemen.

The mob sends The Champ to chaperone a group of migrants across the border. The Champ makes the handoff to the Minutemen, then walks away. That's when he hears the gunfire. The Minutemen massacre the illegals -- and it doesn't even take them 60 seconds.

The event sets The Champ on a collision course with powerful forces on both sides of the border as he seeks justice for the murdered Mexicans -- and redemption for himself.

He's finally found something worth living for. And to get it, all he has to do is die.