A cinematic true-crime story set at the Mexican-American border about two very different brothers whose lives intertwine in an FBI drug investigation and a champion race horse.

Jose Trevino was raised in Nuevo Laredo on the Mexican side of the border, one of thirteen children born to a hard-working ranchhand. He grew up loving the sprawling countryside and most of all the tough, fast quarter horses, but in search of opportunity he crossed the border into Dallas to work as a bricklayer. As Jose built a humble business, his older brother Miguel had ascended to the top of the infamously bloody Zeta cartel and was said to have burned rivals alive, eaten victims' hearts, and launched grenades at the US Consulate. But Jose, married with kids and now a US citizen, kept his nose clean.

Then one day Jose showed up at a quarter horse auction and bid close to a million dollars for one horse--the largest amount ever paid at auction. The bricklayer quickly became a major player in the quarter horse racing scene that thrived on both sides of the border and caught the attention of rookie FBI agent Scott Lawson, who was himself raised on a horse ranch. He enlisted Tyler Graham, a young American rancher who was breeding Trevino's champion horse--nicknamed Huesos, or Bones--to infiltrate what was revealing itself to be a major drug laundering operation, with the ultimate goal of capturing the notorious Miguel Trevino.

The powerful horse may drive the narrative but Bones goes deeper, shedding light on the drug war, the perilous lives of American ranchers, the Sisyphean work of drug cops, and how greed and fear mingle with race, class, and violence along the vast Southwest border region. At its heart, this riveting crime drama, set against the high-stakes world of horseracing, is an intimate story about two brothers, family loyalty, and the tragic costs of a failed drug war.

Joe Tone was most recently the editor of the Dallas Observer. He has written extensively about sports, crime, and immigration, among other topics, and his sportswriting has been honored and cited multiple times in Best American Sportswriting. His writing has appeared in the Village Voice, L.A. Weekly, and American Way Magazine, among other publications. Tone is a graduate of Santa Clara University and holds a Masters degree from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. He was born and raised in Northern California, where his family bred one of the most prolific Arabian studs in U.S. history. Tone lives in Dallas with his wife and two sons, including one who is unnaturally obsessed with horses.