The Beast: Riding the Rails and Dodging Narcos on the Migrant Trail is the first book by Salvadoran journalist Óscar Martínez.

The book follows the harsh journey of Central American immigrants on the El tren de la muerte to the United States.

He spent a year travelling with the migrants across Mexico along with a crew of photographers and filmmakers and made eight trips aboard the freight trains on the El tren de la muerte.

They however lauded the 'graceful, incisive writing' and called it an honorable successor to The Road to Wigan Pier by George Orwell and How the Other Half Lives by Jacob Riis.

[9] Financial Times lauded the 'precise, empathetic and often poetic language' of the writer which 'summons rage and pity but also admiration in the reader'.