On Tuesday, April 25th at 6pm PDT, join Massy Arts Society and Bloomsbury/Raincoast Books for a moderated conversation followed by a Q&A with author Katherine Corcoran in support of her “chilling and nuanced” book, In the Mouth of the Wolf. Katherine will be joined by guest Leopoldo “Polo” Hernández and their discussion will be moderated by local crime reporter Kim Bolan.
Come and learn more about the pulsating investigation into the murder of a legendary woman journalist on the verge of exposing government corruption in Mexico.
Registration is free, open to all and required for entrance.
Venue & Accessibility
The event will be hosted at the Massy Arts Gallery, at 23 East Pender Street in Chinatown, Vancouver.
The gallery is wheelchair accessible and a gender-neutral washroom is on-site. Please refrain from wearing scents or heavy perfumes.
For more on accessibility including parking, seating, venue measurements and floor plan, and how to request ASL interpretation please visit: massyarts.com/accessibility
Covid Protocols: Masks keep our community safe and are mandatory (N95 masks are recommended as they offer the best protection). We ask if you are showing symptoms, that you stay home. Thank you kindly.
About The Book
In the Mouth of the Wolf (Bloomsbury, distributed in Canada by Raincoast Books)
“Chilling and nuanced … a murder mystery but also, more important, a portrait of a nation where no one knows what to believe, or whom to trust.”–Mark Bowden, The New York Times Book Review
“Epic … deeply reported and riveting.”–NPR Online
Former AP Mexico bureau chief Katherine Corcoran’s pulsating investigation into the murder of a legendary woman journalist on the verge of exposing government corruption in Mexico.
Regina Martínez was no stranger to retaliation. A journalist out of Mexico’s Gulf Coast state of Veracruz, Regina’s stories for the magazine Proceso laid out the corruption and abuse underlying Mexican politics. She was barred from press conferences, and copies of Proceso often disappeared before they made the newsstands. In 2012, shortly after Proceso published an article on corruption and two Veracruz politicians, and the magazine went missing once again, she was bludgeoned to death in her bathroom. The message was clear: No journalist in Mexico was safe.
Katherine Corcoran, then leading the Associated Press coverage of Mexico, admired Regina Martínez’s work. Troubled by the news of her death, Corcoran journeyed to Veracruz to find out what had happened. Regina hadn’t even written the controversial article. But did she have something else that someone didn’t want published? Once there, Katherine bonded with four of Regina’s grief-stricken mentees, each desperate to prove who was to blame for the death of their friend. Together they battled cover-ups, narco-officials, red tape, and threats to sift through the mess of lies—and discover what got Regina killed.
A gripping look at reporters who dare to step on the deadly “third rail,” where the state and organized crime have become indistinguishable, In the Mouth of the Wolf confronts how silencing the free press threatens basic protections and rule of law across the globe.
With Author
Katherine Corcoran is a former Associated Press bureau chief for Mexico and Central America. She has been an Alicia Patterson fellow, the Hewlett Fellow for Public Policy at the Kellogg Institute at the University of Notre Dame, and a Logan Nonfiction Program fellow. At the AP, she led an award-winning team that broke major stories about cartel and state violence and abuse of authority in Mexico and Central America. Her columns about Mexican politics and press freedom have appeared in the Washington Post, the Houston Chronicle, and Univision Online, among other publications. She is currently codirector of Cronkite Noticias, the bilingual reporting program at Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, and of MasterLAB, an investigative editor training program in Mexico City.
and Guest
Leopoldo “Polo” Hernández is a reporter from Veracruz with more than 15 years of experience. He has built his career in local, community and national media outlets covering human rights, freedom of expression, security and migration, among other topics. As a close friend and protege of Regina Martínez, he reported under threat and duress in Xalapa during the administration of Gov. Javier Duarte. After her murder, he was forced to work in exile for his own safety.
Moderated by
Kim Bolan
Award-winning investigative reporter Kim Bolan covers gangs and organized crime for The Vancouver Sun, where she has worked for 38 years.
Bolan has covered some of the biggest criminal cases in Canadian history from the Air-India terrorist bombing to serial killer Robert Pickton to the Surrey Six gangland slaying. Among the dozens of honours she has received are: the International Media Women’s Foundation’s Courage in Journalism Award, the Pen Canada Paul Kidd Courage Prize and the National Press Club of Canada’s Press Freedom Award, two National Newspaper Awards, two Canadian Association of Journalism Awards and seven Webster Awards.
Since December 1997, she has received regular threats related to her coverage of terrorism and organized crime cases and once learned details of a plot to kill her while covering a gang murder case.