The novel’s main theme is how economic inequality, corrupt governments, and a flourishing trade in illegal drugs have shaped the politics and social life of countries including Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Guatemala. The drugs are largely controlled by gangs or cartels who have almost complete power in their territories, as local officials and police either cannot or will not try to stop them.

These gangs, like the fictional Alphas of the novel, are immensely powerful and maintain that power through a double-edged sword of threats and intimidation, along with the promise of riches not available through any other channel. The gangs bring in young children and raise them up in the ethos of the gang, that leadership substituting for actual parents by providing for them and protecting them in a way their own families cannot.

Most of the migrants trying to go north are doing so because they fear they will be killed if they stay in their native countries. Whether they have actively engaged a gang or been the victim of unfortunate circumstance or just simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time, once a person has the attention of a gang or cartel, their only options are to join them or try to escape.