Blood in the Desert: The T.J. English Reader (pub date: 9/1/26)

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In hardcover and paperback!

BOSTON, MA—Hamilcar Publications will publish Blood in the Desert: The T. J. English Reader by renowned journalist and author T. J. English on September 1, 2026, in dual hardcover and paperback editions.

Featuring a foreword by bestselling novelist Dennis Lehane, Blood in the Desert gathers, for the first time, the finest of English’s published essays and reporting alongside new work, including the haunting title piece, which has never before appeared in print.

A former New York City taxi driver turned acclaimed chronicler of crime, corruption, and the American underworld, English has spent four decades practicing a form of literary journalism that remains as vital as ever. The author of classic works such as The Westies, Havana Nocturne, and The Corporation, he has earned a place alongside writers like Jimmy Breslin, Pete Hamill, and Gay Talese.

Spanning subjects as varied as jazz, boxing, police corruption, violence in the desert Southwest, and the comedy of George Carlin, Blood in the Desert showcases a scribe drawn toward the fault lines of American life.

Dennis Lehane writes in the foreword:

“T. J. English is, in every great sense of the word, a born raconteur. His tales within this book range far and wide… English is heartless in his assessment of bureaucracies and institutionalized crime and indifference, but he is compassionate (yet quite clear-eyed) about all the hapless and hopeless strivers out there… Out of these strivers, English creates a symphony of souls. A collective voice. A universal hymn.”

Early praise for the collection includes:

“Blood in the Desert shows T. J. English at the top of his formidable game. Shifting between the gritty West Side of Manhattan, the arid landscapes of New Mexico, the boxing rings of Brooklyn and Las Vegas, and the swanky nightclubs of mid-century Havana, English probes the dark heart of contemporary culture. ‘True crime’ doesn’t begin to describe the literary achievement.”
—Peter Richardson, author of Savage Journey: Hunter S. Thompson and the Weird Road to Gonzo

REVIEW COPIES AVAILABLE UPON REQUEST

PRESS KIT + PDF ARC: CLICK HERE

T. J. ENGLISH is a journalist and author whose work has chronicled organized crime, boxing, race, music, politics, and American subcultures for more than forty years. His books have been translated into multiple languages and praised for their combination of rigorous reporting and literary power.

HAMILCAR PUBLICATIONS is a Boston-based publisher focused ontrue crime, professional boxing, hip-hop, jazz, and more. Our books appeal to fans of these fascinating,often-intersecting worlds as well as to readers who are simply passionate about great nonfiction storytelling and beautiful book design.

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THE LAST KILO (pub date: 12/3/24)

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Publisher William Morrow/HarperCollins presents:

From true-crime legend T. J. English, the epic, behind-the-scenes saga of “Los Muchachos,” one of the most successful cocaine trafficking organizations in American history—a story of glitz, glamour, and organized crime set against 1980’s Miami.

Despite what Scarface might lead one to believe, violence was not the dominant characteristic of the cocaine business. It was corruption: the dirty cops, agents, lawyers, judges, and politicians who made the drug world go round. And no one managed that carousel of dangerous players better than Willy Falcon.

A Cuban exile whose family escaped Fidel Castro’s Cuba when he was eleven years old, Falcon, as a teenager, became active in the anti-Castro movement. He began smuggling cocaine into the U.S. as a way to raise money to buy arms for the Contras in Central America. This counter-revolutionary activity led directly to Willy’s genesis as a narco. He and his partners built an extraordinary international organization from the ground up. Los Muchachos, the syndicate founded by Falcon, thrived as a major cocaine distribution network in the U.S. from the late 1970’s into the early 1990’s. At their height, Los Muchachos made more than a billion dollars a year. At the same time, Willy, his brother Tavy Falcon, and partner Sal Magluta became famous as championship powerboat racers.

Cocaine, used by everyone from A-list celebrities to lawyers and people in law enforcement, came to define an era, and for a time, Willy Falcon and those like him—major suppliers, of whom there were only a few—became stars in their own right. They were the deliverers of good times, at least until the downside of persistent cocaine use became apparent: delusions of grandeur, psychological addiction, financial ruin. Thus, the War on Drugs was born, and federal authorities came after Falcon and his crew with a vengeance. Willy found himself on the run, his marriage and family life in shambles, the halcyon days of boat races and lavish trips to Vegas and parties at the Mutiny night club seemingly a distant memory.

T. J. English has been granted unprecedented access to the inner workings of Los Muchachos, sitting down with Willy Falcon and his associates for many lengthy interviews, and revealing never-before-understood details about drug trafficking. A classic of true-crime writing from a master of the genre, The Last Kilo traces the rise and fall of a true cocaine empire—and the lives left in its wake.

Writing influences

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I was asked recently by an esteemed college professor to list influences. Every professional writer has them.

Here is a list. Mind you, these are not necessarily my favorite writers, they are writers I was influenced by, which is, perhaps, a different criteria. I learned from these writers, in some cases from their writing style, and in some case from their POV as a writer.

Being influenced by is not the same as choosing to copy or emulate. On the contrary. When you are really influenced by a writer, it usually means you wouldn’t dare try to copy that writer. The thinking is, that has been done, and it can’t be done better…

Major influences:

  1. Fyodor Dostoyevski – crime and society. The micro and the macro. To whom I owe everything.
  2. Zora Neal Hurston – anthropological storytelling; diverse writing talent
  3. Hunter S. Thompson – counterculture point of view; iconoclast
  4. Norman Mailer – the audacity of the authorial voice; the big picture
  5. Joan Didion – cool detachment and consummate research; the perfect sentence
  6. Stephen Crane – exploring the social universe; the non-passive imagination
  7. Albert Camus – applied existentialism
  8. Chester Himes – the world within a world
  9. Jean Genet – prison voices; society as a form of incarceration
  10. James Baldwin – exposing the hypocrisy of white society and psychological horrors of the American project
  11. William Kennedy – Irish American storytelling
  12. Peter Maas – non-fiction crime narratives
  13. Pauline Kael – verve in the prose, thinking and writing at the same time. Immediacy of the ideas.
  14. James Joyce – self invention through writing
  15. Edna Buchanan – a woman in a man’s world; reporting as an art form

The Illustrious Dangerous Rhythms All-Stars

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If you are in NYC on these dates, here’s your chance to experience the killer new band put together by author and jazz aficionado T.J. ENGLISH at the legendary nightclub Birdland. Three nights to choose from (Friday, Saturday & Sunday)! Don’t miss it!