Product Description

Murderer, philanthropist, drug dealer, politician, devil, saint: many words have been used to describe Pablo Escobar, but one is irrefutable – legend. For the poor of Colombia, he was their Robin Hood, a man whose greatness lay not in his crimes, but in his charity; for the Colombian rich he was just a bloodthirsty gangster, a Bogie Man used to scare children into their beds; for the rest of the world flush with his imported cocaine, he was public enemy number 1.

During his reign as the world’s most notorious outlaw, he ordered the murder of thousands – at one point even bombing a passenger jet – smuggled drugs into the US in mini-submarines inspired by Bond films, was elected to parliament, staged midnight escapes through the jungle from whole army battalions, built his own prison, consorted with presidents, controlled an estimated fortune of over $20 billion, and managed to outwit the secret American forces sent to kill him for over 3 years. His ambition was as boundless as his violence, and neither was ever satisfied.

This is the first major, and definitive, biography of this remarkable criminal life, told in jaw-dropping detail by the one man who, more than any other, can understand just how far he came and just how low he fell: his brother, Roberto Escobar.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #24376 in Books
• Published on: 2009-03-19
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

Review
'Told with a cool reserve... Escobar's life makes for a grim, ensnaring tale.' (Kirkus Reviews )

About the Author
Roberto Escobar operated for over fifteen years as the accountant for Pablo Escobar's Medellin drug cartel. After handing himself into the Colombian authorities in 1992, he was placed in a maximum security prison, until his release in 2004. He now lives on a farm in rural Colombia.

Customer Reviews

not the total truth
having read killing pablo i wanted to read more about escobar so i bourght this, altough it reads well, you cant help but notice the book (wrote by pablo's brother) holds back on the killings and terrorism comitted by pablo escobars organiasion and more focuses on the voilance commited by the police and other groups sent to hunt down pablo, that aside it goes into detail on how smuggling was done and how much money they had coming in and diffrent ways they cleaned it, astonishing amounts of money! worth a read but i would say killing pablo is a much more realistic account of what the cartel was really like.

The other side of the story - good enough to forgive the fraternal bias
There have been plenty of books about Pablo Escobar and Mark Bowden's detached view of the hunt in Killing Pablo, read like a thriller even though it was a true story. Since this book gives an account from inside the family of the man himself and the 24/7 stress and danger involved just by being related to Pablo Escobar, this book is of equal stature, and equally addictive to read, as Mark Bowden's book from the 90s. That said, there are a couple of irritating parts where Roberto Escobar states "I don't believe my brother would do that" in response to rumours he was told. Such clear familial bias was left unresolved in the text and might as well have been cut out.

That niggle aside the rest of the book is an excellent oral history of someone no longer alive to defend himself, and unlike Killing Pablo which I burned through in three days, you can relax and read this one at a slower pace and still enjoy it.

Insiders view
A good read for anybody interested in organised crime. It gives an insiders view of Pablo Escobar and his life, the grinding poverty that inspired him and the giant ego. Also it explains the complex venal Columbian politics ot the time.The author, being his brother, is often trying to explain the motivavtion behind some of the horrors committed by Pablo but you do realise he was by no means the only monster invloved. And the drugs still flow.