NUMBER: 2TITLE: Killing Pablo: The Hunt for the World's Greatest Outlaw
AUTHOR: Mark Bowden
STARTED: January 7, 2005
FINISHED: January 8, 2005
PAGES: 296
GENRE: Non-Fiction
FIRST SENTENCE: There was no more exciting place in South America to be in April 1948 than Bogata, Columbia.
SUMMARY: [From barnesannoble.com] Here is the inside story of the brutal rise and fall of Colombian cocaine cartel kingpin Pablo Escobar, whose criminal empire held a nation of thirty million hostage -- a reign of terror that would only end with Escobar's death. In an intense, up-close account, award-winning journalist Mark Bowden exposes the never-before-revealed details of how U.S. operatives covertly led the sixteen-month manhunt. Drawing on unprecedented access to the soldiers, field agents, and key Colombian and U.S. officials involved in the chase, as well as top-secret documents and transcripts of Escobar's intercepted phone conversations, Bowden creates a gripping narrative that is epic in scope, a tour de force of investigative journalism, and a stark portrayal of rough justice in the real world.
REASON FOR READING: Mark Bowden is my favorite non-fiction author. This book has been in my TBR pile for quite some time and I needed to read it before I went back to school.
THOUGHTS: Once again, Mark Bowden takes a single dramatic point in history and turns it into a "must-read." He has an amazing ability to use language and prose to tell a story. After reading Black Hawk Down, I knew that I had to read the rest of his works. His books have a richness to them that makes them unlike other non-fiction books. I find the many of today's non-fiction books are dull and dry. They are full of ideas, theories, and facts but lack movement. Bowden, on the other hands, includes all the facts and details but gives them body. He crafts sentences such as "Violence stalks Columbia like a Biblical Plague." The book is active and flows in a seamless motion of history and narrative.
Killing Pablo shows how Bowden takes a point in history and draws out as many details and narratives as possible. The book reads as quickly as a clancy and has as much action as a Hollywood action flick. The fact that it is all fact makes the story compelling. Like his other books, Killing Pablo not only shows history, it also has a meaning. In this case, Bowden pinpoints how governments interact with each other and parts of their country. When one point breaks down, everything else begins to crumble.
MISCELLANEOUS: I kept on thinking of Tom Clancy's Clear and Present Danger (both the book and the movie) while I was reading this.
KEEP/SHARE/CRINGE(?): Keep
RATING: 9/10 [Excellent! Couldn't put it down]
CR: Duke of Sin by Adele Ashworth
RN: Something on my bookcase at school.
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