At the Devil's Table: The Untold Story of the Insider Who Brought Down the Cali Cartel [Hardcover]

Within its intended limits of investigative journalism, this is a first-rate book and I strongly recommend it. It is a narrative review of the Cali drug cartel during the 1990s. It does not address the wider context of the global drug trade, the policy issues, or the mechanisms of the cocaine trade. These are subordinate to the viewpoint of the central character, Jorge Salcedo, an insider close to the heads of the cartel family and who became their electronic security expert. He portrays himself as a man who had noble intentions in helping the Cali gang fight back against Pablo Escobar, the notorious and almost unbelievably brutal head of the dominant Medellin cartel. He avoided involvement in the cocaine trade and its inherent stream of murders and kept his hands fairly clean. Little by little, he became so entrapped that he was locked into the family as its tightly controlled minion, with death the routine punishment for any effort to "resign." Finally, as the U.S. government began to disrupt the cartel, despite the widespread corruption in the police, military, government and judiciary - the family even bought itself the Presidential election and seems to have had around a third of Cali's public officials on retainer -- Salcedo is able to make his break and help a pair of DEA agents capture the head of the cartel family.

The story is his recollection of events as revealed to a well-respected LA Times reporter over a number of years, almost entirely by phone - Salcedo is well tucked away in the Federal Witness Protection program - and supplemented with other material, including from the many, many trials that he and other key insiders provided. It's a complex and compelling story that makes Goodfellas, the Sopranos and even the Godfather look almost quaint. My only hesitation is in believing that Jorge was quite as much the relative innocent he claims to be.

There seem to me to be three main questions that a review of any book in this style and topic needs to address:

1. Is it substantive?
2. Is it reliable?
3. How interesting is it?

All in all, it rates 4-5 stars in each of these regards.

Substantive: This has all the strengths of, say, a New York Times series or Atlantic article. It's well crafted, measured and full of appropriate detail. It does not try to go beyond reporting and from my own limited but still reasonably extensive reading on the subject (plus my work in Colombia during these years) it has the ring of authenticity and carefully builds its narrative with evidence and example rather than assertion and interpretation. It manages to be solid without being academic - there is no need for footnotes and references but I still had the sense of this representing the best of the now old tradition of responsible reporting and backed with plenty of solid data. There are only a few instances where thoughts are put into a character's head or the adjectives start piling up in purple prose.

Reliability: This is crucial. The essence of the story is that it is a factual and dispassionate laying out of what happened. There is no reason to read it unless the account can be trusted. The Devil's Table scores highly here. There is no effort to jazz up the narrative or embellish dramatic incidents or characters - there are plenty of opportunities to have done so, with everyday psychothugs, femmes fatales, venal colonels, and a host of figures with all the charm, moral sensitivity and compassion of Paulie Walnuts in the Sopranos.

Interesting: The books rates fairly highly here, though I have a few cavils. The difficulty in presenting an investigatory report in this style is to find the balance between dispassionate and careful laying out of fact versus colorful presentation and pacing. I enjoyed the book and it held my attention through its 300 pages but even another 30 would have been too long. The detail that makes it credible largely covers very ordinary matters: building layouts, setting up security, meetings and conversations that are often ordinary in themselves. The author is very skillful in finding the right balance of presentation but this is in no way a spellbinder - nor is it intended to be.

The world of the cartels - Escobar in Medellin, the Rodriguez Orejuela family in Cali, El Chapo Guzman's Sinaloa gang, the Beltran-Levya Zetas - is monstrous and intruding on our society everywhere. It seems to me to be a subject that the responsible citizen needs to know about. Traffik/Traffic, the two films based on the same script, are an excellent fictional capturing of the dynamics of the drug trade; alas, they appeared ten years apart and there was barely a need to update any detail between 1989 when Traffik appeared and 2000 when Benicio Del Toro so brilliantly starred in Traffic; the "war on drugs" is a lost cause. Now, Monterrey, one of the finest cities to work in in the world with one of its best university systems, is under siege as the Gulf and Zeta cartels use kidnapping, random shootings and mass killings to gain control of Mexico's wealthiest region. The Devil's Table provides insights into the nature of the cartel system, the pervasive corruption and violence they depend on and create, and the immense challenges it poses to even stem the tide let alone win the "war." It's horrific.

The Devil's Table is a reliable, interesting and resonant introduction to everyday life in the cartels. I think you will find it well worth your time. It is a fine piece of work.

I was floored by this insider's story of a Colombian drug cartel. I didn't know much about drug cartels other than being ruthless, but At the Devil's Table really brought to light the true livelihood of a life in the drug cartels.

Rempel's book took many years in the making as he slowly pieced together the life of Jorge Salcedo as a member of the Cali Cartel. At times you wonder if Salcedo is trying to save face, trying to make himself not a part of the Cali Cartel, at least the violent part of it, but then you immediately brush it aside and accept Rempel's story for what it is: a career man sucked in to the life of violence, unable to extricate himself. What is truly astonishing is how important he was to the Cali Cartel's main boss, Miguel Rodriguez, as his chief of security, and the amount of intel he was able to take in just from being close to the big man and trusted and accepted by everyone else.

Of course he wasn't privy to all the details of the cartel, such as most of the trafficking as well as the violence and death that was meted out as though it was just anther day in the park. But what we do get is a man who knows intimate details of those that the Cali cartel interacted with, either through first hand or through a second hand source. As his importance grew within the cartel so did the responsibilities expected of him, which is where he drew the line at murder. Rempel makes a point to tell the reader that Salcedo knew he was taking part in dubious acts, like plotting the murder of Pablo Escobar, or aiding and abetting serious crimes. Made a point of showing that he always justified it in his head, by playing the hero figure or protecting lives and families. So he is not without his blame for the actions he took within the cartel, but he at least looks like the most honest, respectful and honorable man among thieves and murderers.

Rempel's account of Jorge Salcido's life from 1989-1995 takes part during the pivotal cocaine wars between the rival cartels, and thus is an excellent history and first person account of that time period in Colombia. I would definitely recommend At the Devil's Table to everyone. In fact I enjoyed it so much I am going to search out other books of the drug cartels and read further on the subject. A definite recommend.

5 stars.

My hometown, Cd. Juárez, has been experiencing a terrible increase in violence because of drug cartels. I was very interested in this book because I wanted to understand the situation Mexico is going through now, by reading about what Colombia went through 20 years ago.

This book follows Jorge Salcedo, an engineer (with military background) who was hired by the Cali cartel to orchestrate the murder of Pablo Escobar, the leader of the Medellin cartel. It seemed to Jorge that Pablo was a monster and the Cali cartel wasn't, so he joined the Cali cartel on this enterprise. Jorge was a master of radio communications and ended up being the main person protecting the leader of the Cali cartel. Little by little, he realized that his cartel was as monstrous as the Medellin cartel and he wanted out. This is the tale of how he got out, bringing down the Cali cartel with him.

The story is very exciting and very interesting. It made me understand how difficult it is to capture drug lords when they live in such a corrupt society. The Cali cartel had many important politicians, police officers and military generals bribed. They had incredible economic power, they had great resources to prevent the police raids, they also had great bunkers to hide the leaders if the police managed to find the house they were living in.

This book can also help one understand why it was so difficult to find Osama Bin Laden or why so many people can join such an evil organization. People can just rationalize their way of life. The main character Jorge, always had a rationalization to feel like he wasn't evil in the organization. Part of the reason Jorge agreed to tell his story to Bill Rempel (the author) was that he wanted to prevent others from making pacts with the Devil, as mentioned in the book:
"My story should start by saying, if you are invited into such an organization, stop---stop and run away. Don't think you can ever fully escape."

Overall, a very interesting book that is well worth reading.