At age 12, Honduran-American Brenda Paz was affiliated with a powerful Los Angeles clique of the Mara Salvatrucha, a violent stree gang. At the age of 15 she willingly took a 13-second-long beating from a group of gang members without fighting back. She soon became the girlfriend of a high-ranking leader of the vast criminal network. After she'd witnessed (and helped commit) countless robberies, stabbings, and murders, Brenda was arrested. She decided she'd had enough. Brenda became an informant, and her testimony helped finger MS members in Virginia, Texas, North Carolina, California, Colorado, and Idaho. Before she'd even turned 17, Brenda was in the Witness Protection Program. But her new life didn't last long. Brenda missed her friends, and within a few weeks she reached out to them. Less than a month after she left the Program, Brenda was dead. This Is for the Mara Salvatrucha is journalist Samuel Logan's gripping exploration of Brenda's life within the complex, powerful group. The first book to shed light on a criminal network that affects countless cities but has never been fully understood by the general public, it is both an edge-of-your-seat read and an eye-opening expose.

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