Inside the Violent World of the Medellín Cartel
April 27, 2009
Roberto Escobar provides an intimate portrait of his brother, Pablo Escobar, the infamous leader of the Medellin drug cartel. He makes a strenuous—if not entirely persuasive—effort to reveal his brother's more sensitive side and to argue that the Colombian and U.S. governments exaggerated the degree of Pablo's involvement in the cartel. The book's organization is spotty and the familial bias often frustrates—listeners will likely crave a more unvarnished biography—but Ruben Diaz provides an unimpeachable performance. With an authentic, never grating accent, he narrates so sincerely that the audience might believe they are listening to Roberto himself. A Grand Central hardcover.
January 12, 2009
Pablo Escobar 's brother and business partner recalls the Colombian drug lord 's outsized life and death.
Roberto tells Pablo 's story with a cool reserve. He makes no excuses for his brother 's crimes, but he wants readers to have a more rounded picture. In Roberto 's view, Pablo was not all bad. He was loyal, he was a family man and he had a streak of generosity to match his violence. Growing up poor, he soon discovered a knack for smuggling. The contraband was cigarettes at first, but he was in the right place at the right time to take advantage of the cocaine boom, much of it fueled by U.S. users. It was purely a business decision, made without remorse: Cocaine was easier to smuggle than washing machines (another of Pablo 's specialties) and provided a much greater profit. The amounts of money involved were ludicrous; it was so difficult to find good hiding spots for tens of millions in cash that about ten percent was lost to water damage and rats. Pablo used submarines for his smuggling operations and had so many members of the army, police and state bureaucracy on his payroll that he rivaled the government as an employer. Yet the consequences of his trade were death and destruction, which rain down on almost every page of this memoir. Jaw-dropping events abound. Leftist guerrillas took over the Palace of Justice at Pablo 's request to seize papers that threatened his extradition to the United States. He built his own prison with the government 's assent and dispensed colossal sums to the impoverished and needy. "In Colombia, " Roberto explains, "poor people have always tried to help each other. " Pablo wasn 't exactly underprivileged by the time he was dispensing alms, and the eerily detached way he gave execution orders doesn 't buttress his brother 's case for his charitable side. Nonetheless, his life makes for a grim, ensnaring tale.
The Robin Hood mantle draped over Pablo is a bit much, but his exploits will keep readers agog.
(COPYRIGHT (2009) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)
February 1, 2009
By the time of his death at the hands of a special squad of Colombian police in 1993, Pablo Escobar controlled a multibillion-dollar cocaine-based empire that corrupted police, the military, and high-ranking politicians. His older brother, Roberto, served as the financial guru of this empire, deciding how to save, hide, and distribute vast sums of cash to maintain and nurture the so-called Medell-n cartel. Escobar, who served a 10-year prison sentence for his cartel activities, certainly provides a unique and often deeply personal perspective. His description of his childhood with Pablo may help explain but does not justify the way Pablo consistently resorted to unrestrained violence against any opposition. Colombia in the 1950s was in the throes of chronic political violence on a massive scale, with roving factional gangs engaging in murderous raids and counter-raids. Still, Escobars frequent efforts to explain (or even justify) Pablos outrages that killed numerous innocents quickly become tiresome and morally repugnant. When his narrative sticks to the nuts-and-bolts process of his brothers relentless, ruthless construction of a gigantic and effective criminal organization, this is an engrossing and morbidly fascinating tale filled with intrigue, betrayal, and stunning amounts of cash. At its best, this is a real-life story of the rise and fall of a violent and vile man.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)
January 12, 2009
Pablo Escobar's brother and business partner recalls the Colombian drug lord's outsized life and death.
Roberto tells Pablo's story with a cool reserve. He makes no excuses for his brother's crimes, but he wants readers to have a more rounded picture. In Roberto's view, Pablo was not all bad. He was loyal, he was a family man and he had a streak of generosity to match his violence. Growing up poor, he soon discovered a knack for smuggling. The contraband was cigarettes at first, but he was in the right place at the right time to take advantage of the cocaine boom, much of it fueled by U.S. users. It was purely a business decision, made without remorse: Cocaine was easier to smuggle than washing machines (another of Pablo's specialties) and provided a much greater profit. The amounts of money involved were ludicrous; it was so difficult to find good hiding spots for tens of millions in cash that about ten percent was lost to water damage and rats. Pablo used submarines for his smuggling operations and had so many members of the army, police and state bureaucracy on his payroll that he rivaled the government as an employer. Yet the consequences of his trade were death and destruction, which rain down on almost every page of this memoir. Jaw-dropping events abound. Leftist guerrillas took over the Palace of Justice at Pablo's request to seize papers that threatened his extradition to the United States. He built his own prison with the government's assent and dispensed colossal sums to the impoverished and needy. "In Colombia, " Roberto explains, "poor people have always tried to help each other. " Pablo wasn't exactly underprivileged by the time he was dispensing alms, and the eerily detached way he gave execution orders doesn't buttress his brother's case for his charitable side. Nonetheless, his life makes for a grim, ensnaring tale.
The Robin Hood mantle draped over Pablo is a bit much, but his exploits will keep readers agog.
(COPYRIGHT (2009) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)