Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

Preview
  • Tulia

  • Race, Cocaine, and Corruption in a Small Texas Town
  • By: Nate Blakeslee
  • Narrated by: James Boles
  • Length: 13 hrs and 54 mins
  • 3.0 out of 5 stars (3 ratings)

£0.00 for first 30 days

Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Tulia

By: Nate Blakeslee
Narrated by: James Boles
Try for £0.00

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £25.99

Buy Now for £25.99

Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.

Summary

Early one morning in the summer of 1999, authorities in the tiny west Texas town of Tulia began a roundup of suspected drug dealers. By the time the sweep was done, over 40 people had been arrested and one of every five black adults in town was behind bars, all accused of dealing cocaine to the same undercover officer, Tom Coleman. Coleman, the son of a well-known Texas Ranger, was named Officer of the Year in Texas. Not until after the trials, in which Coleman's uncorroborated testimony secured sentences as long as 361 years, did it become apparent that Tom Coleman was not the man he claimed to be.

Tulia is the story of the town, the bust, the trials, and the heroic legal battle to reverse the convictions that caught the attention of the nation in the spring of 2003. With a sure sense of history and of place, a great feel for the characters involved, and showdowns inside the courtroom and out.

Blakeslee's Tulia is contemporary journalism at its finest, and a thrilling read. The scandal changed the way narcotics enforcement is done in Texas, and has put the national drug war on trial at a time when incarceration rates in this country have never been higher. But the story is much bigger than the tale of just one bust. As Tulia makes clear, these events are the latest chapter in a story with themes as old as the country itself. It is a marvelously well-told tale about injustice, race, poverty, hysteria, desperation, and doing the right thing in America.

©2005 Nate Blakeslee (P)2006 Audio Evolution, LLC
  • Unabridged Audiobook
  • Categories: History
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

Listeners also enjoyed...

From Midnight to Guntown cover art
The Lynching cover art
Being Oscar cover art
Killing the Dream cover art
Anatomy of Innocence cover art
Vendetta cover art
Unintended Consequences cover art
Anatomy of Injustice cover art
Girl in the Grave and Other True Crime Stories cover art
We, the Jury cover art
Good Intentions cover art
Wicked Takes the Witness Stand cover art
Mistrial cover art
Diary of a DA cover art
Bending Toward Justice cover art
Some Choose Darkness cover art

Critic reviews

" Tulia, in Blakeslee's rich and deeply satisfying telling, resembles nothing so much as a modern-day To Kill a Mockingbird, or would, that is, if the novel were a true story and Atticus had won." ( The New York Times)
"Blakeslee's excellent and eminently readable book is a wonderful story of justice triumphant, but his vivid portrait of law enforcement gone wrong suggests that there are more Tulias than there are lawyers dedicated enough to expose them." ( Washington Post)
"This devastating indictment of the toll taken by the war on drugs, viewed through the prism of one small community, is a masterpiece of true crime writing...this haunting work will leave many wondering how many other Tulias there are out there." ( Publishers Weekly)

What listeners say about Tulia

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 3 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    0
  • 4 Stars
    1
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    0
Performance
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    0
  • 4 Stars
    1
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    0
  • 4 Stars
    1
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.