No, I hadn't heard of Santiago Meza before.

There are several books on the subject. Sadly I have not gotten around to reading most of them yet. I am reading The Mexican Mafia by Tony Rafael now. It is pretty good. However it is primarily concerned with La Eme and only peripherally with the much more powerful cartels.

I just bought The Black Hand by Chris Blatchford which is centered around Boxer Enriquez, who is also Eme, not cartel.

I have heard good things about the book Narcocorrido by Elijah Wald, which discusses cartel influence in the Mexican entertainment world -primarily music- and the resulting murders or extortions of singers or musicians.

I have also seen good reviews of the book Herencia Maldita(Cursed Inheritance), a discussion of the cartels by the Mexican journalist Ricardo Ravelo.

Report to Congress on Cartels.
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL34215.pdf

But most of what I know has come from reading an increasing number of articles in the NYT, WSJ, El Paso Times, LA Times which discuss the rising level of cartel directed violence in Mexico and well as the trickle down effect. Kidnapping is really big business in Mexico and it's not just the cartels who are doing it.

Several of the cartels' members are police or military. This brings a new level of violence and brutality to the crime business, not to mention better weaponry..

"When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies but the pack survives."
Winter is Coming

Now this is the Law of the Jungle—as old and as true as the sky; And the wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the wolf that shall break it must die.
As the creeper that girdles the tree-trunk, the Law runneth forward and back; For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.