This is an another astounding piece of work by JCB. This work is someting of a departure from his previous work i.e., "Pancho Villa", "The Pistoleer" et al insofar as "Borderlands" consists of several pieces of short fiction and the characters are contemporary. Blake again plumbs the depths of people living on the edge, struggling against forces outside their control as they live their lives in the mixed culture of the south Borderlands. If you're a fan of JCB's work, the Preface offers an unstinting view into the author's background, especially his childhood and the geography he himself inhabited in the border-lands between Mexico and the US. This background sheds valuable insight for the stories that follow and inform the authors' motivation for painting these bleak heartrending portraits that you can't put down .