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"With unparalleled access to gang leaders, gang members, wives and girlfriends, police detectives, and FBI agents, the author has extensively documented the [Nuestra Familia] universe," says Library Journal in this online review of Blood in the Fields. Click here to read the complete review.
"A lot of young kids were dying," she recalled. In the farm cities along California's northern coast, shootings and revenge hits were tearing communities apart. "I finally decided that as a journalist and living in the area, it was my responsibility to face this issue and see what was going on," said Reynolds.
Julia Reynolds discussed gang violence and Blood In The Fields: Ten Years Inside California's Nuestra Familia Gang on KPCC's Take Two in LA. (10 min)
"Investigative journalist Julia Reynolds dives in deep, offering a compelling first-person account of a group that has turned a largely Hispanic community upside down and is expanding its reach far away from its start in sleepy Salinas, California." NBCnews.com featured Reynolds' Blood in the Fields, about prison, violence and California's Nuestra Familia gang. Click here to read the entire article.
"One of the best books I've read this year--and a must-read for anyone who wants to understand gang violence--is reporter Julia Reynolds' Blood In The Fields: Ten Years Inside California's Nuestra Familia Gang." Click here to read the rest of the Huffington Post article.
Booklist said Blood in the Fields is "A riveting tale of a monster of criminality that is still not dead but merely changing shape."
Julia Reynolds, author of Blood in the Fields, was interviewed about her criminal justice reporting and her new book for a feature in the Monterey County Weekly. Click here to read the entire story.
"When I got to know gang members I saw that a lot of them were really totally normal kids, some of them very good kids, very smart kids, and somehow they made this leap to becoming a full time professional criminal. And so the question I wanted answered, how did that happen? What were the steps along the way that took them there? It’s very easy to say: they’re bad people; they’re natural born killers, but I didn’t find that was the case. They were good kids who slowly become people who did very terrible things."
Julia Reynolds was interviewed about Blood In The Fields: Ten Years Inside California's Nuestra Familia Gang on KAZU-FM in advance of an event in Santa Cruz, CA. Click here to listen to the interview.
Blood in the Fields received a positive review in Publishers Weekly. They call it "substantive, compelling, and important" and say "Journalist Reynolds's debut offers a well sourced account of the most important criminal organization you’ve never heard of: Nuestra Familia, a violent prison gang that controls drug trafficking in the correctional facilities and agricultural towns of Northern California."
Read the complete review here.