Product Description

During the mid-1980s, Marks had 43 aliases and 25 companies, all laundering money from dealing cannabis. After a world-wide operation, he was arrested and sentenced to 25 years at a State Penitentiary in Indiana, but was released in 1995 after serving seven years. This is his own story.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3174 in Books
• Published on: 1997-06-02
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 466 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
What an extraordinary fellow Howard Marks is. His autobiography takes him from his South Wales childhood and Oxford University education through his life dealing marijuana and the enormous mythology that accrued around what the tabloids called "the English Toff Drugs King of the World". This book is called Mr Nice after one of the many aliases Marks's life as a merchant of pot obliged him to assume, but it describes him perfectly too: the epitome of British niceness, the nicest international criminal you could hope to meet. It's not hard to see why this has become a cult book--Marks is a brilliant version of a mate down the pub, telling you the gobsmacking stories of his many adventured life. The writing is direct and the narrative will detain you as comprehensively as Marks himself was detained for seven years at Terre Haut Penitentiary, Indiana. He was released the same day as Mike Tyson. "I had," he observes mildly, "been continuously in prison for the last six-and-a-half years for transporting beneficial herbs from one place to another, while he had done three years for rape." Truly there is no justice; but there are eye-popping adventures, hilarious touches and a thorough-going wisdom in this excellent book. --Adam Roberts

About the Author
During the mid 19802 Howard Marks had forty-three aliases, eighty-nine phone lines and owned twenty-five companies trading throughout the world. At the height of his career he was smuggling consignments of up to thirty tons of marijuana, and had contact with organisations as diverse as MI6, the CIA, the IRA and the Mafia. Following a worldwide operation by the Drugs Enforcement Agency, he was busted and sentenced to twenty-five years in prison at Terre Haute Penitentiary, Indiana. He was released in April 1995 after serving seven years of his sentence.

Customer Reviews

Sorry not another "best book ever" review
There's no doubting Howard Marks has done and achieved some amazing things in his life. However, after the account of his Oxford background has passed, I found the book - due to its nature - often drifted into tale after tale of fake passports and opening bank accounts. Some of the amazing characters Howard meets on his travels and some of the events and scenes he witnessed are rushed over to keep the smuggling theme as the emphasis of his tale. This of course is completely understandable, but at times it reduces the fluency of the book in my opinion.
Despite the claim on the front of the cover, I did not always like Howard Marks. His constant justification that weed is "harmless and beneficial" may be true but it belies the fact that smuggling leads to misery and violent terror for many further down the line, as did many of the groups that Marks dealt and associated with. Likewise, I don't see that money laundering, deceit, and purposely cheating the courts of justice make a likeable guy. Marks may be intelligent and charismatic, but Mr. Nice? I don't think so.

Mr Nice vs High Times
Yes ok, so we are all by now very familiar with Mr Nice. Mr Mark's particular angle is of course extremely charming and entertaining. I would advise however to read his biography "High Times" which tells his stories in a different light. This will allow you to draw your own conclusions to how much fact vs fiction there may bwe in the portrayal of his life and crimes.

H.Marks enjoyed his high life, I was bored reading about it!
Howard Marks is billed as very intelligent and charismatic, probably true, but having waded through this book I do not feel at all excited having read about his "gobsmacking stories of his many adventured life." If his life was gobsmacking, this long winded, meandering account of it does him an injustice. Sorry Howard !!