The Power of the Dog (Power of the Dog, #1)

by Don Winslow

And thank God for that, Adán thinks, because while Keller’s revenge obsession might cost me money in the short run, in the long run it makes me money. And that is what the Americans simply cannot seem to understand—that all they do is drive up the price and make us rich. Without them, any bobo with an old truck or a leaky boat with an outboard motor could run drugs into El Norte. And then the price would not be worth the effort. But as it is, it takes millions of dollars to move the drugs, and the prices are accordingly sky-high. The Americans take a product that literally grows on trees and turn it into a valuable commodity. Without them, cocaine and marijuana would be like oranges, and instead of making billions smuggling it, I’d be making pennies doing stoop labor in some California field, picking it.