STARSTRUCK

Before Jeffrey Epstein, there was Sergio Andrade.

Investigative journalist and author McDougall (Born To Run, 2009) provides a shocking, in-depth account of the sordid events surrounding the wildly successful Mexican music producer known as Mr. Midas and his protégé, Gloria Trevi, a musical sensation nicknamed the Mexican Madonna. Together, they were accused of operating a globe-trotting sex cult in the 1990s that victimized teenage girls and produced a number of babies—one abandoned near death at a hospital in Brazil, and one who mysteriously died. Portraying himself as something of a swashbuckling reporter willing to go any length to get a story, McDougall chronicles in stomach-churning detail how poverty-stricken families and their starry-eyed young daughters were lured with promises of fame and fortune, only to be sexually exploited. In the process, McDougall also faults Mexico’s largest broadcast company, Televisa, for creating a flawed model for a star-making system that resulted in an unsafe environment for young, impressionable girls. “The Televisa method for creating stars is to seclude young girls in singing and dancing schools, then have them emerge a few years later with a new name and appearance,” McDougall writes. “Not surprisingly, these star schools are ripe for abuse by the men who run them.” The author’s dogged journalism skills land him separate jailhouse interviews with Andrade and Trevi while they await their trials, but they prove too slick and adept at gaslighting to reveal much of substance; Trevi spent four years in prison and was acquitted in 2004. Instead, it’s McDougall’s reporting on the victims, particularly the brave and forthright Aline Hernández, that make the book such a gripping read. McDougall writes that Andrade was able to entice and groom one victim after another and then, in a sickening twist, groom them to recruit younger girls.

A well-researched and disturbing investigation into a teenage sex cult that rocked Mexico’s entertainment industry.