Customer Reviews

Killing Pablo: The Hunt for the World's Greatest Outlaw

5 star:		(71)
4 star:		(44)
3 star:		(17)
2 star:		(2)
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Killing Pablo is a good read, however far from what I would call an exciting read. It is very informative and is an excellent book if one wishes to have a better understanding of the actual politics behind the US war on Columbia's Narco's and seeks to understand why in the eighties and early nineties Columbia was being called a "Narco State" by particularly the United States government who more or less spearheaded the war against the Columbian drug Cartels. I am about to start reading Pablo Escobar's brothers book (The Accountants Story by Roberta Escobar) and am hoping this book will provide more insight into the actual life of Pablo Escobar, which is what I was looking for in this book, however did not find.

This book, inadvertently, I suspect, is really an argument against the drug war. By now a cliche, this line of thought postulates that, were drugs like cocaine not criminalized in the states, there would be no or little incentive for murderous thugs in Latin America to risk murder and lengthy prison times getting the drug in this country.

Thus, one could argue, quite blithely, that, had the American government wised up and attempted to regulate drug trafficking like any other international business, many of the unsavory elements of the business would depart for greener (more illicit) pastures. The natural consequence of this, of course, would be that millions of dollars otherwise spent on futile attempts at interdiction and eradication would be spent elsewhere, and many of the thousands of people killed both in the United States and Latin America over the past 25 years would instead be alive.

Would that it were true that the United States could hew to the lessons learned in the alcohol trade: once alcohol was legal again in the United States and it became a regulated drug sold only to people legally eligible to buy it, the violence associated with it declined precipitously. In fact, the only violence associated with alcohol use today is domestic violence and drunk driving. Those violent acts, while of course tragic to all those involved in them, are far fewer and far less bloody than the gang wars initiated by Al Capone and his antogonists.

That the same lesson applies in the drug war is sad.

On another note, a number of reviewers on this site have mentioned many apparent parallels between the hunt for Pablo Escobar and the hunt for Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. While it is true that, superficially, there are parallels, such as the US government deciding that its national security in all three instances was at risk with these monsters operating openly, it is nonetheless an unfair comparison. Relatively few Colombians liked Escobar, and he never had the legitimacy of the state behind him, as did Hussein.

Given all that, this is an excellent account of the travails leading up to, and concluding with, the execution of Escobar.

This is a very good read told at a brisk pace. I came away feeling that Pablo was a bit of a tragic figure, with plenty of bad as well as plenty of good in him, mixed in with a very heavy dose of ambition fueling his rise to the top of the drug world. For all of the bad things Pablo seems to have done, I found it very sad and even tragic to see him hunted down and shot to death in the end. Colonel Martinez, Pablo's nemesis, comes across as an interesting and strong person who you also care about. As some critics have noted, perhaps the book should have been written by a Colombian, who would have greater familiarity with the subject matter, but Bowden seems to have done a very good and objective job of telling the story. Author of Adjust Your Brain: A Practical Theory for Maximizing Mental Health.

I picked up this book because I really liked Black Hak Down. This book is written in the same style that made BHD a great book. There is great attention to detail, personal portraits of the characters, and an ever-evolving storyline. My exposure to Pablo Escobar before this book was just a brief understanding that he was a drug dealer from way back. Other than that I could not tell you much about the guy. But after reading this book, I have a much better understanding of the man and why the U.S. wanted him neutralized.

Great read. Quick read. Must buy.

This book was a great read. I had always been interested in the story about Pablo's rise and fall, and this book was very well written, and informative.

Bowden gives a very gripping glimpse inside the world of the late Colombian drug lord, Pablo Escobar. This perspective is juxtaposed beside the tale of the military and police forces from the United States and Colombia seeking to put an end to his ruthless reign of terror.

The author has done his research and it shows. You get the distinct impression from Bowden's writing that the author knows much more than he is actually saying in his account. Therefore, he is able to weave a story, rich with facts,and easily able to captivate the reader's attention at every turn. This is what I believe sets Bowden, Ambrose, and others apart among popular historians: They do their homework. They don't do their research, it seems, with the intent of getting just enough for their book. They research every angle of the book and then from that massive block of knowledge they sculpt a story that is both accurate and spellbinding.

I came to this book with little or no prior knowledge of Pablo Escobar and the US involvement in the Colombian drug cartels, so I am unable to review this book from that perspective. You will have to rely on better-versed reviewers for that. However, from a consumer standpoint--somebody who loves a good story, especially if it is true--this book outperformed my expectations. I finished reading it in three nights; I could not put it down. Buyer beware, do not start reading this, unless you want to finish it quickly. I guarantee that you will never find yourself bored reading this one!

In reading KILLING PABLO, I was struck by the likeness of Pablo Escobar to later terrrorists such as UBL and Saddam. For example, the Colombian trafficker demands investigation of "human rights abuses" and backs up his demand with a threat to place a 10,000 kg bomb in a Colombian govmnt office. He sends a suicide bomber to blow up an Avianca jet in flight, killing all 110 passengers, then issues more demands: "We want peace...We do not accept the numerous arbitrary raids on our families, the ransacking, the repressive detentions, the judicial frame-ups, the anti-patriotic and illegal extraditions, the violations of all our rights..." To "make a statement to the Colombian government" he orders a captured army officer to be tortured to death slowly.

It is a scenario which seems to be becoming ever more common: a thug with endless amounts of money attempting to impose the law of the jungle on the world. It's not wild to speculate that if he hadn't been killed, Pablo Escobar might well have beaten bin Laden to the punch in landing a major attack on US soil.

Mark Bowden does a thorough job of giving the political context as well as the intimate details of the hunt for Escobar. The drug lord is shown to be a functioning pothead with delusions of grandeur of remarkable severity, seeing himself as a sort of messianic guerilla, a cross between Che Guevara, Vito Corleone, and Christ. He maunders while stoned that terrorism is "the atomic bomb for poor people". One doesn't need too lively an imagination to see what he, a person rich enough to buy an atomic bomb, would do with it to help the poor people for whom he cared so deeply.

The unreal quality of the saga is brought home most vividly in the chapter on Escobar's "imprisonment", a bizarre charade in which Escobar carried on his coke business from the confines of a specially built "prison" where his supporters had buried an arsenal of machine guns just in case the incarceration was not to his liking. Here, the "guards" served drinks on the sidelines while the "inmates" played endless games of soccer. After a little over a year Escobar does leave, resuming his former life of fugitive and terrrorist. President Gavira of Colombia makes a fateful resolution: "This was the last time he and the country would be humiliated by Pablo Escobar. There would be no more deals, no more special prisons. Pablo would be hunted down and killed...there was no other way. Pablo was a criminal with not restraints, no boundaries. He could do anything; he WOULD do anything."

It takes one more year to run him to ground, which the Colombians do with the help of the US DEA and a vigilante group called Los Pepes. The manhunt and the methods frequently stray into questionable legal terrain, just as in the searches for Saddam and UBL. But there can be little doubt that it was either Escobar or the Colombian government that would survive, not both. Aside from the fascinating story, KILLING PABLO is an excellent case study of how a crime organization like the Medellin cartel, if left to fester, has the potential to grow into a full dictatorship.

This book was the most interesting book I have ever read. It's about the most notorious cartel leader in history, Pablo Escobar. The subject of this book is about the rise and fall of a Columbian drug lord named Pablo Escobar. This book goes into the life, family, and inner-workings of his empire. It talks about how he came into power and the problems he faced everyday growing up in a ravaged Columbia and managing his drug ring import export business. The book never has a dull moment. Every page has something exciting happen. I recommend this book to everyone, even people who don't like to read.

If you ever wondered how the US spent billions of dollars on the "War on Drugs", this book makes great reading. Unlike the current "War on Terrorism", the "War on Drugs" was not fought on the front page or with live TV journalism.

Bowden's style of journalistic reporting of the facts makes for though provoking reading and numerous "subject to interpretation" conclusions.

The next generation of drug dealers learned a valuable lesson from Pablo in avoiding the spotlight brought on by agregious behaviour. That behaviour lead to the massive undertaking needed to bring Pablo down.

With the current failed searches of Osama and Sadam, there is a currentness to this book that points our the need for "local support" versus the ability for the US to do it ourselves.

I really enjoyed Black Hawk Down, and I am interested in Colombia. So this book was an easy pick. However, I was concerned that maybe the author might be a "one hit wonder." Not so.

This book is engaging from the very start, and I think it is every bit as good and right now I am thinking it is even better than BHD.

If you are interested in Pablo Escobar, or just what life has been like in Colombia during the last few decades, you won't regret reading this book.