In this highly captivating book, Paul Vanderwood meticulously analyzes the cult of Juan Soldado, a widely venerated Mexican folk saint not acknowledged by the church. What makes this case so fascinating is the fact that the devotion emerged around the figure of Juan Castillo Morales, a young soldier convicted of the rape and murder of eight-year-old Olga Camacho and publicly executed by a firing squad in Tijuana in 1938. How is it possible that the perpetrator of such a heinous crime could become the center of a vibrant popular devotion? To answer this question, the author assumes the roles of detective, social historian, and anthropologist. The book is divided in three sections: “The Crime,” “Circumstances,” and “Belief.” The first offers a painstaking reconstruction of the crime, investigation, and execution. Castillo’s punishment was uniquely brutal: a court martial sentenced him to death according to the “Ley Fuga.” In the presence of a mesmerized crowd, he was released in a graveyard and forced to run until soldiers shot him down like an animal. The author suggests that the order must have come from President Cárdenas himself. In an effort to understand the broader context of this devotion, Vanderwood shifts gears and provides a colorful description of Tijuana’s meteoric rise. By the 1920s, U.S. and Mexican entrepreneurs such as Wirt Bowman and Abelardo L. Rodríguez had transformed the sleepy town into a major tourist destination closely integrated with southern California. Stars like Clark Gable and Dolores del Río patronized the Agua Caliente resort, with its spa, casino, golf course, and racetrack. Thousands of Tijuanenses, many of whom belonged to the labor confederation CROM, made a good living in the tourism industry. Though the repeal of Prohibition damaged Tijuana’s fortunes, the city rebounded, in part due to its designation as a free trade zone. However, the years preceding Olga’s slaying, the period of Cardenista reform, were troubled. Cárdenas still feared his archrival, Plutarco Elías Calles, and rumors of U.S.-based conspiracies abounded. Cárdenas was eager to undermine the Callista CROM. His cultural campaigns not only created a religious vacuum in Baja California Norte but also threatened the town’s future as a gambling resort. In 1937 Cárdenas expropriated the Agua Caliente resort and, typically, decided to transform this odious den of iniquity into a technical school. Outraged CROMistas squatted in the resort with their families and occupied the municipal palace just days before Camacho’s death. Her murder gave CROM a pretext to unleash mob violence that resulted in the burning of Tijuana’s police station and city hall. Innocent (as some claimed) or not, Castillo Morales was caught in this web of political intrigue, labor mobilization, and economic stress. In part 3, the author tackles the most intangible factor in this history, faith. He deftly links Castillo’s death to popular beliefs. The brutal nature of the rapist’s execution sparked sentiments of compassion among witnesses, who may have interpreted the spectacle as a cruel theater of power. Some came to view Castillo as a scapegoat or a martyr who suffered like the crucified Christ. His soul was heard to cry out for justice, and blood was seen to seep from his grave site, which soon became a shrine. As a lost ánima, the innocent soldier was considered an intercessor with God, capable of granting miracles. Vanderwood stresses that the reality of Castillo Morales’s past is less important than the constant reshaping of his story by the faithful. Recently, Juan Soldado has been portrayed as the patron saint of immigrants seeking divine protection as they face the dangers of the U.S.-Mexican border.These three levels of analysis mesh quite neatly. Vanderwood convincingly demonstrates how the grisly events of 1938 combined with broader circumstances to allow Tijuanenses to transform a convicted murderer into a saint. Though never explicitly so, Vanderwood’s analysis is clearly informed by religious studies theory and enhanced by numerous wide-ranging comparisons. Hardcore positivists may feel a bit uneasy with the author’s tendency to defer to the intangible mysteries of spirituality and may not appreciate his occasionally Lovecraftesque language, with its emphasis on words like “unfathomable,” “imponderable,” and “incomprehensible.” But he is always straightforward about his approach and acknowledges the limitations of his analysis: “Social science techniques can carry us only so far into [the believers’] realm, but then must be abandoned to possibilities (and probabilities) and faith, along with the unknown and unknowable” (p. 169). Given these handicaps, Vanderwood has done a wonderful job in evoking a popular religion that is dynamic, largely autonomous, and profoundly meaningful. This highly accessible, compellingly narrated book, which often reads like a murder mystery, will appeal to both academic and nonacademic audiences interested in the culture and religion of Mexico and Latin America.