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

The bulk of Killing Pablo describes what happened when the U.S. government put its resources behind the hunt for Pablo. Bowden describes the search in gripping detail, from the massive electronic-surveillance effort to bureaucratic infighting between rival U.S. agencies. This is an outstanding work of reportorial journalism, too: in the epilogue, Bowden drops tantalizing hints that it was an American--not a Colombian--who delivered the killing shot to Pablo in 1993. Readers looking for a real-life thriller--or any kind of thriller, for that matter--won't do much better than Killing Pablo.

Product Description
A tour de force of investigative journalism-this is the story of the violent rise and fall of Pablo Escobar, the head of the Colombian Medellin cocaine cartel. Escobar's criminal empire held a nation of thirty million hostage in a reign of terror that would only end with his death. In an intense, up-close account, award-winning journalist Mark Bowden exposes details never before revealed about the U.S.-led covert sixteen-month manhunt. With unprecedented access to important players-including Colombian president César Gaviria and the incorruptible head of the special police unit that pursued Escobar, Colonel Hugo Martinez-as well as top-secret documents and transcripts of Escobar's intercepted phone conversations, Bowden has produced a gripping narrative that is a stark portrayal of rough justice in the real world.

"The story of how the U.S. Army Intelligence and Delta Force commandos helped Colombian police track down and kill Pablo Escobar is a compelling, almost Shakespearean tale." (Los Angeles Times)

"Absolutely riveting. . . . Mark Bowden has a way of making modern nonfiction read like the best of novels." (The Denver Post)

In reality the book is full of mistakes, some of which would have been quite easy to detect and fix. These are just a few I found in a quick reading:

(1) Simon Bolivar did not try to join Colombia with Peru and Venezuela to form the "Gran Colombia" (p. 16)(the "Gran Colombia" included Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela); (2) The Rojas Pinilla dictatorship did not last five years (p. 18) (it lasted four years:1953-1957); (3) Carlos Lehder and Jose Rodriguez Gacha were not "Antioquia Crime Bosses" (p. 29) (Lehder was from Quindio and Rodriguez was from Cundinamarca); (4) President Alfonso Lopez Michelsen was not a founder of the Liberal Party (p. 62) (the Liberal Party dates back to mid-nineteenth century and thus could not have been founded by President Lopez Michelsen, who is still alive); (5) President Cesar Gaviria Trujillo was never part of Bogota's elite (p. 122) (Gaviria comes from an upper-middle class family in the provincial town of Pereira); (6) Marina Montoya was not a slender woman (p. 127) (Miss Montoya was a heavy-set woman); (7) Father Garcia Herreros was not named Fernando (p. 130) (his name was Gabriel); (8) The "Procuraduria General de la Nacion" is not "a kind of internal-affairs unit for the government" (p. 189) (the Procurador General is a constitutional level state official appointed by Congress and not part of the government); (9) The government owned radio and television station is not called Intravision (it's named Inravision); (10) Natives of Medellin are not called Medellinos (p. 280) (they are called medellinenses or just paisas).

The book is full of mistakes in names and dates as well (we do like our names to be properly spelled, if it's not too much trouble), and it relies altogether too much on a self-serving account published by Escobar's cousin, Roberto. The author's lack of familiarity with Colombian history and language is obvious, and pervasive. This makes it a bit hard to trust some of the more sensational revelations.

As semi-fiction it's quite fun, though.


A Serious Account of the Grim Realities of the Drug War   May 30, 2001
Newt Gingrich (Washington, DC United States)
27 out of 29 found this review helpful

Bowden has done it again. This is not quite the work of genius that Black Hawk Down was but this is a very engrossing and serious account of a manhunt that came to symbolize many of the challenges we face in the drug war. Pablo Escobar was the richest and most powerful cocaine dealer in the world. He acquired pretensions to enter politics and turn Colombia into a personal fiefdom. The United States government allied with the Colombian government in what became a multi-year campaign that was far harder and far more dangerous than any one would have believed when it began.

In the end Pablo was dead but the drug trade was as powerful and as profitable as ever. Its center of activity had moved from Medellin to Cali and the newer generation of drug lords had learned a lot from watching (and in fact participating in) the campaign against Pablo. In many ways the Cali cartel became the ally of the Colombian and American governments jointly seeking to get rid of Escobar.

This book raises serious questions about the nature of American involvement in the third world. When combined with Black Hawk Down you get a realistic pair of assessments of the limitations of American power and the nature of the grim realities we are trying to change in much of the third world.

This is a very helpful but sobering book for anyone interested in the drug war, in America's role in the world or in a recent skirmish with fascinating ramifications.


Explosive!   May 3, 2001
Robert S. Campbell (Fayetteville, NC USA)
23 out of 25 found this review helpful

Killing Pablo is a hard-hitting book that truly represents the brutal reality of the war in Colombia. As a Special Forces Master Sergeant with multiple tours in Colombia I can honestly say that Mark Bowden has done a masterful job of encapsulating this conflagration by describing the events that led to the rise and fall of one of its most notorious figures-Pablo Escobar. Bowden starts off by giving a brief history of the war in Colombia, starting with La Violencia, and then of course the current Narco war that is currently consuming Colombia. The events are taken from various sources and Mr. Bowden does a superb job of describing, in detail, what lengths the US and Colombia went through to take down one of the largest criminal empires in history. The book ends with questions that we as American should be asking ourselves. Is it worth the effort - in the name of National Security- to selectively target foreign citizens for assassination? My conclusion is incomplete. However, I will say that the removal of Pablo Escobar was nothing more than a tactical victory in a war Colombia and the United States are losing strategically. This book is a must for Special Operations Soldiers, Latin American Historians, Law Enforcement Officers, and anyone who is involved in the policy decisions concerning the US war on drugs.


Reveals US Sources & Methods, Weaknesses   July 25, 2001
Robert D. Steele (Oakton, VA United States)
18 out of 23 found this review helpful

I remember being shocked when a book published by a former prisoner of war revealed all of the CIA's sources and methods for secret writing--one reason terrorists and others make photo-copies of incoming and outgoing correspondence these days....

This book provides an excellent overview of sensitive sources and methods used by the U.S. military to intercept and locate electronic transmissions. It specifically "blows" a cover company, two specific kinds of aircraft, and several U.S. Special Operations Forces standard operating procedures. I suspect that NSA and the CIA Centers dealing with terrorism and with crime and narcotics are having the same difficulties recovering from this book that NSA had when President Reagan inadvertently revealed in public that he was receiving transcripts of Politburo cell phone conversations made while in transit, from their car phones.

Having said that, I find that the author has performed very responsibly as an investigative journalist, and that his story is superior in every respect. I even find that he has withheld some key information out of respect for his sources,and that there are many lessons to be learned from this book about how we might improve our transnational campaign against non-state forces that have vastly more money, ruthlessness, and sheer people power than we do.

I like and recommend this book--it is a real-world story, well-researched and well-told.

Informative, yet unfulfilling   May 16, 2001
Brian D. Rubendall (Oakton, VA)
13 out of 19 found this review helpful

For a straight journalistic account of how the U.S. Government joined forces with elements of the Colombian government to hunt down and kill Pablo Escobar, "Killing Pablo" brings the goods. The years long pursuit of the man many considered to be the world's most notorious outlaw was punctuated by epic corruption and fantastic levels of sickening violence. All of this author Mark Bowdon scrupulously documents. The problem with the book is that Bowden has no sources who were truly on the inside of Escobar's empire. This is not surprising given that most of his associates were killed. But without first hand accounts of many of the violent incidents, they become a blur of facts that eventually become mind numbing. By all accounts, Escobar was a cunning and ruthless man, but without first hand accounts, the reader really doesn't get to know him. As a result, Bowden's narrative tends to drag after awhile.

Bowden does an excellent job of humanizing the men, both American and Colombian, who were reponsible for Escobar's downfall. But their stories are just not as interesting. Ultimately, at the end of the book Bowden shows just how futile the drug war has been to date. It would be nice to think that the book might help America rethink its drug startegy. But I think that's being overly optomistic.