According to conventional history, Pancho Villa conducted a bloody raid on the little town of Columbus, New Mexico, beginning just after midnight on March 9, 1916.

In retaliation for the raid, which cost the lives of eight American soldiers, 10 civilians and more than a hundred of the raiders, General John J. "Black Jack" Pershing launched a nine-month invasion deep into Mexican territory in pursuit of the man celebrated as el Leon del Norte (the Lion of the North). Though deemed a success in several aspects, the campaign failed in its main goal -- the capture of Pancho Villa.

In this novel, the late Fred Bean takes an alternative view of the raid and the Pershing campaign. Though Villa did take credit for the raid, the novel puts the blame on the Venustiano Carranza regime, which Villa sought to overthrow. The intent, engineered by German agents in Mexico, was to trigger war between the United States and Mexico to prevent the U.S. from joining the Allies in Europe.

Bean's inspiration for this alternative view was interviews with Will Johnson, one of Pershing's civilian scouts, and other participants in the conflict. There's also some support for the view in the intercepted Zimmerman telegram and other documents, which reveal German espionage in Mexico in the period.

Whether you accept the theory or not, there's no denying Bean wrote a crackling good thriller with a definitive look at the difficulties of the campaign, interesting characters, plenty of action and even a little romance.

In addition to an interest in Mexico and history in general, I was drawn to the story because I had a great-uncle who participated in the punitive campaign and later with Pershing in WWI.