Matteo Alacran Books

Series: National Book Award Winner for Young People's Literature, Newbery Honor Book, Printz Honor Book Matteo Alacrán was not born; he was harvested. His DNA came from El Patrón, lord of a country called Opium--a strip of poppy fields lying between the United States and what was once called Mexico. Matt's first cell split and divided inside a petri dish. Then he was placed in the womb of a cow, where he continued the miraculous journey from embryo to fetus to baby. He is a boy now, but most consider him a monster--except for El Patrón. El Patrón loves Matt as he loves himself, because Matt is himself. As Matt struggles to understand his existence, he is threatened by a sinister cast of characters, including El Patrón's power-hungry family, and he is surrounded by a dangerous army of bodyguards. Escape is the only chance Matt has to survive. But escape from the Alacrán Estate is no guarantee of freedom, because Matt is marked by his difference in ways he doesn't even suspect.

In the riveting sequel to the acclaimed bestseller The House of the Scorpion , Matt reels from the change in status quo and struggles to do the right thing; find out his story’s end in this new edition with a reimagined cover! Matt Alacrán is a fourteen-year-old drug lord. Until recently, Matt was just a clone grown from a strip of El Patrón’s skin. Now he is lord of the land of Opium, on the one-time US–Mexico border, and rules over an army of microchipped, zombielike workers who are programmed to produce the drugs that are Opium’s main export. El Patrón kept the air and water in Opium clean, but the rest of the world is a polluted wasteland. Matt is sure that, in his new position, he can find a way to break the cycle of violence and destruction—but it will only be possible if he chooses the right people to trust.