As would be expected of a New Yorker writer, Blitzer tells this st, interspersing the stories of three focal individuals with the narrative of US policy engagement with Central America. The individuals give us reasons to care about the policy changes, humanising a big picture narrative, while the policy detail tries to explain the whole mess.
The book is ambitious in scope - starting under Carter and finishing under Trump, and covering primarily El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, with Nicaragua always lurking in the wings. The scope is one of the best parts of the book - tight enough to detail what happened in these countries, but broad enough to give a glimpse of how the whole picture fits together. Blitzer also succintly covers the political weirdness of US immigration enforcement, making it easier to understand some of the Obama and Trump years.
There are unfortunate gaps in Blitzer's analysis - while he certainly covers US decisions around the region, he tends to imply electoral needs and ideology primarily drive these - the book lacks a focus on the role of US/Canadian/Multinational exploitation of the region (or in fact any economic analysis, including the role of migration criminalisation in keeping a low-wage pool of workers in the US). But there is nevertheless plenty here to get angry about, and any writer seeking to connect the dots between US foreign policy and the desperate plight of Central American refugees is a welcome addition to reading lists.