Godmother

Riveting scenes of the cocaine underworld fill Smitten's ( Twice Killed ) account of the career and capture of Blanco, a member of the Medellin drug cartel, and the sons she raised to work with her. Unfortunately the chronology of this 10-year tale occasionally is difficult to follow, a problem compounded by Smitten's rare but deceptive melodramatic flourishes. Court records and interviews with Drug Enforcement Administration agents, federal attorneys, Miami police and Blanco's acquaintances flesh out a portrait of a ruthless cocaine wholesaler whose ``mules'' (couriers) transported drugs in women's undergarments and shoe heels. Her propensity for violence was legendary: she bragged of murdering her husband and claimed responsibility for Miami's ``Dadeland Massacre,'' a shootout in a mall parking lot that disposed of one of Blanco's creditors. Her audacity, too, knew no bounds: According to Smitten, when Colombia sent a ship to the ``Parade of Tall Ships'' at the U.S. bicentennial, Blanco loaded it with 1000 kilos of coke worth $40 million; diplomatic immunity saw most of the shipment safely into this country. (Nov.)