Marching Powder - Softcover

Young, Rusty

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1509829407 ISBN 13: 9781509829408

Publisher: Pan, 2016

Synopsis

San Pedro is Bolivia's most notorious prison. Small-time drug smuggler Thomas McFadden found himself on the inside. Marching Powder is the story of how he navigated this dark world of gangs, drugs and corruption to come out on top.

Thomas found himself in a bizarre world, the prison reflecting all that is wrong with South American society. Prisoners have to pay an entrance fee and buy their own cells (the alternative is to sleep outside and die of exposure), prisoners' wives and children often live inside too, high quality cocaine is manufactured and sold from the prison.

Thomas ended up making a living by giving backpackers tours of the prison - he became a fixture on the backpacking circuit and was named in the Lonely Planet guide to Bolivia. When he was told that for a bribe of $5000 his sentence could be overturned, it was the many backpackers who'd passed through who sent him the money. Written by lawyer Rusty Young, Marching Powder - sometimes shocking, sometimes funny, is a riveting story of survival.

About this title

Review:

All the staples of the prison memoir are here: sadistic guards, an attempted break-out, the terrors of solitary confinement, the joys of freedom . . . The result is a truly gripping piece of testimony. (Sunday Telegraph)

This exotic, cautionary yarn opens the abyss beneath our wealthy world. (Uncut)

Astonishing real-life story of a Brit drug smuggler banged up in Bolivia's most notorious jail. (FHM)

Book Description:

A gripping, sometimes surreal account of surviving one of the world's craziest and most dangerous prisons.

About this edition

• Publisher: Pan
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 1509829407
• ISBN 13: 9781509829408
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 384