Killing Pablo

“The story of how the U.S. Army Intelligence . . . helped Colombian police track down and kill Pablo Escobar is a compelling, almost Shakespearean tale.” —Los Angeles Times

When the cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar escaped his lavish, custom built prison in Colombia, the fallout drove the nation to the brink of chaos. In Killing Pablo, acclaimed journalist Mark Bowden tells the story of the US military’s fifteen-month mission to find him. Drawing on unprecedented access to the soldiers, field agents, and officials involved in the chase, as well as hundreds of pages of top-secret documents and transcripts of Escobar’s intercepted phone conversations, Bowden creates a narrative that reads as if it were torn from the pages of a Tom Clancy thriller.

Bowden also tells the story of Escobar’s rise, how he built a criminal organization that would hold an entire nation hostage—and the stories of the intrepid men who would ultimately bring him down. The cast of characters ranges from the US ambassador to Colombia and special forces commandos to Escobar’s archenemy, Col. Hugo Martinez.

It was Martinez’s son, raised in the shadow of constant threat from Escobar’s followers, who would ultimately track the fugitive to a Bogota rooftop on the fateful day in 1993 when the outlaw would finally meet his end. Killing Pablo is a tour de force of narrative journalism and a stark portrayal of rough justice in the real world.