Killing Pablo - Softcover

Mark Bowden

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1786490714 ISBN 13: 9781786490711

Publisher: Atlantic Books, 2016

Synopsis

A tour de force of investigative journalism, Killing Pablo tells the story of the violent rise and fall of Pablo Escobar, the head of the Colombian Medellin cocaine cartel. Escobar's criminal empire held a nation of thirty million hostage in a reign of terror that would only end with his death.

In an intense, up-close account, award-winning journalist Mark Bowden exposes details never before revealed about the covert sixteen-month manhunt that was led by US Special Forces and intelligence services. With unprecedented access to important players - including Colombian president Cisar Gaviria and the incorruptible head of the special police unit that pursued Escobar, Colonel Hugo Martinez - as well as top-secret documents and transcripts of Escobar's intercepted phone conversations, Bowden has produced a gripping narrative that is a stark portrayal of rough justice in the real world.

About this title

Review:

Killing Pablo, Mark Bowden's intoxicating account of the turbulent life of Colombian drug baron Pablo Escobar and his inevitable demise, relates in riveting detail the cataclysmic effect one man can have on the world economy. Finally tracked down and killed in 1992 after a 15-month intense manhunt that had resulted in hundreds of casualties on both sides, Escobar was, ironically, that archetypal American hero, the outlaw, siding with "ordinary people" against the ruling oligarchy (although at his peak Forbes magazine listed him as the seventh-richest person in the world). His break came when the American drug of choice changed from dope to cocaine, a golden, or perhaps powdered, egg exploited by Escobar with resourceful manipulation of officials and politicians--he would offer the classic choice of his silver or his lead. Even when incarcerated at La Catedral prison on a smuggling charge, he turned it into a state within a state. The guards, the army and the police all fell within his pay and he led his operation with a quiet, well-mannered ruthlessness. Until, that is, the Americans took an interest.

Bowden is well-equipped to describe the drawn-out campaign by the intelligence services to assassinate Escobar, having already covered similar territory in the superb Black Hawk Down, which chronicled the disastrous 1993 American operation in Mogadishu. His descriptions of the electronic surveillance that finally ensnared the hounded Don and the shady mutual interests of civilian militia group Los Pepes, the Colombian government forces and the US Delta unit that wore him down, are taut, dramatic and deeply thrilling. While he stops short of claiming that the Americans were present or active in the killing, he admits that Delta knew roughly where Escobar was and were dismissive of the electronic wizardry, pointing out that Escobar was eventually spotted by the naked eye. Though Escobar died, the circumstances he seized upon would be harder to expunge. The troubling, concluding lines of Brecht's The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui come to mind, referring to a character based on Al Capone and Hitler but who could have been Escobar, "The bastard son is dead but the bitch is still on heat". --David Vincent

Review:

Vivid, fast-paced and well researched --Sunday Times

A remarkable opus of investigative journalism --The Times

Mark Bowden's thrilling, completely engrossing book brings the man and his bloody times to vivid life. I couldn't put it down. --Howard Marks

Powerfully written and well researched --Independent on Sunday

A psychotic safari Daily Mail A master of narrative journalism, Bowden employs the same techniques of reconstructing scenes and dialogue that made his bestselling Black Hawk Down gripping reading. --New York Times

A well researched and staggering account. --Time Out

A brilliant reconstruction... Clear and gripping --Evening Standard

Reads like a Clancyesque thriller, it's fast-paced, full of page-turning intrigue, corruption, and thwarted pursuit. --San Francisco Chronicle

A compelling, almost Shakespearean tale --Los Angeles Times

If ever there was a real-life James Bond villain, Pablo Escobar was it... 10 times better than any fictional crime story --Uncut

About this edition

• Publisher: Atlantic Books
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 1786490714
• ISBN 13: 9781786490711
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 400