Mexico's drug cartels fight over the smuggling routes into the United States while President Felipe Calderon's military crackdown seems only to raise the death toll: more than 7,000 people died in drug-related violence in 2009 alone, and 2010 opens with more killings. Journalist Katya Adler travels through the country to find the people living inside that violence, from families burying relatives to towns where gunmen operate in daylight. She traces the reach of Joaquin 'Chapo' Guzman, head of Mexico's most powerful cartel, a man Forbes has ranked among the world's richest and most powerful despite years on the run from the army and the DEA. Guzman is celebrated in narcocorrido ballads sold openly in markets, and Adler reports that his recent wedding was allegedly attended by serving Mexican officials, a detail she uses to press her central question: is the government's war on drugs actually reaching the people running the trade, or only the people caught in its crossfire?