Manhunters: How We Took Down Pablo Escobar

What was it like to be an American DEA agent in Colombia in the early 1990s? Like living in a war zone is how Murphy and Peña describe their time in Bogotá spent hunting drug lord Pablo Escobar in this riveting account of the multinational effort to stop the man behind the Medellín Cartel. Besides supplying cocaine to America, Escobar was behind the kidnaping and assassination of his country’s attorney general and the bombing of a passenger jet in 1989. Murphy and Peña were paid 50% more than stateside DEA agents because of the danger of their mission, and their lives were put on the line multiple times. Through it all, the two agents became trusted partners and best friends, who watched Escobar surrender on TV in 1991, only to reactivate the search when the drug lord escaped from his prison cell the next year. When Escobar was gunned down by the Colombian police in 1993, people celebrated in Colombia, and, not coincidentally, the murder rate in Medellín dropped by 80%. This is a must-read for anyone interested in one of the major campaigns in the war on drugs. 100,000 copy announced first printing. Agent: Luke Janklow, Janklow & Nesbit Assoc. (Nov.)