Internationally acclaimed writer Arturo Perez-Reverte, author of The Club Dumas, has crafted another intense, dramatic, literary suspense tale this time his hero is a woman named Teresa Mendoza who is nicknamed "The Queen of the South" and "The Mexican" by the authorities of three continents. After her boyfriend, a pilot employed by drug lords, is murdered, she begins creating an empire with mafias from Spain, France, Italy and Russia in the male-dominated world of drug trafficking. So begins a journey that will transform this innocent barrio beauty into a woman who is tough and powerful enough to make her own rules.