and "The phone rang and she knew they were going to kill her and " is how this action-filled best-selling novel starts. Internationally acclaimed writer Arturo Perez-Reverte, has crafted another intense, dramatic, literary suspense tale- this time his hero is a woman named Teresa Mendoza who is nicknamed and "The Queen of the South and " and "The Mexican and " 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.