Drug Lord: The True Story of Pablo Acosta: The Life and Death of a Mexican Kingpin
by Terrence E. Poppa

Review by jjares

This is the true story of the drug kingpin of Mexico, Pablo Acosta. Terrence Poppa extensively interviewed the drug kingpin and many associates. As a result, a startling, disturbing expose of Mexican and American policies that don’t do enough to stem the drug tide emerges. Starting as a marijuana salesman, Pablo quickly added heroin. When the Columbian drug lords came calling with cocaine, Acosta allowed them to use his distribution system — for a fee. After a while, the Columbians got too powerful, and Acosta tried to kill them off.
Acosta saw himself as a Robin Hood for the poor of Mexico. He “loaned” money to the poor (people were proud and wanted to feel there was a chance they could repay the loan), built and repaired schools, built nursing homes for the elderly, paid for surgeries, and provided civic support for the poor areas in his region of northern Mexico. Acosta avered that the government should have been doing these good works, not a drug lord. Acosta saw himself as a benevolent Papa. However, he killed rivals, stole thousands of American cars, trucks, and airplanes yearly, and corrupted officials, the police, and soldiers.
One of the author’s most upsetting declarations is that in the 1970s and 1980s, the Mexican government (state, local, and federal) and the Mexican Army were all part of the drug business. They protected approved drug dealers (Pablo Acosta paid them $100,000 monthly to conduct his business). The government also planted, grew, and sold marijuana on its own. US agents got virtually no assistance across the border to stop drug shipments because the Mexicans were making too much money by turning a blind eye. The only reason the Mexican government killed Pablo Acosta is that he talked with journalists, telling the dirty secrets of the Mexican government and military.
As soon as Acosta was killed by Guillermo Gonzalez Calderoni of the Mexican Federal Judicial Police, he was kicked upstairs (gotten rid of, so the corruption could continue). However, it later came out that Calderoni was actually acting for the PRI (Partido Revoucionario Institucional). Calderoni worked through orders of the PRI (more info below), so they could appear to be trying to stamp out organized crime. In reality, the PRI was the drug cartel. The author points out that the deeply ingrained corruption ceased when Vincente Fox became President of Mexico. However, the author states that before Mr. Fox, the crime went all the way to the President of Mexico.
One of the most surprising things I learned from this book is that the Acosta clan sampling the goods. That is one of the cardinal taboos in drug dealing — to imbibe in the product. Unfortunately, this seems to have created the conditions under which drug lords were taken down. After they became addicted, they became unreliable as drug dealers.
Please note that this is the 20th year update of the original version (1998). With a well-trained eye, the author offers an update on the drug scene since Pablo Acosta. Things have changed in the Mexican drug scene. Now, there are $ 30+ billion of drugs pouring into Mexico yearly. However, the government is no longer acting as a mafia leader, controlling organized crime for the benefit of the people in power. The PRI (Partido Revoucionario Institucional) is no longer controlling the government. Now, the highest levels of government are separate from the drug traffic. However, so much money is to be earned that when one drug lord crashes, several more are ready to take his place. Politicians, bureaucrats, and moneyed citizens are now running the drugs. They aim to do it quietly, with no fanfare.
It took decades for reform-based Mexicans to oust the PRI from the government. The author points out that the US must support the democratic Mexican government trying to remove drugs from their economy. It is an uphill battle.  This is an eye-opening book. I cannot recommend it too highly. The author tells his story in such an engaging way that the pages fly past.

Tim Frazer Again by Francis Durbridge

Review by Matt B. (BuffaloSavage)

The longest–running BBC thriller series of the early 1960s was The World of Tim Frazer. It was so popular in fact that professional writer Francis Durbridge was encouraged to write three novels starring the engineer-spy Tim Frazer. Laid-back and relatable, Tim is an everyman character that we like in comfort reading such as this lightweight 1972 classic.

A fellow agent, Leo Salinger, in Tim’s unnamed spy agency is struck and killed by a car in Amsterdam. The driver, comely Englishwoman Barbara Day, is cleared of culpability. But Tim’s boss, the enigmatic Ross, wonders if Salinger was bent, a disturbing thought since hiring Salinger would reflect badly on Ross’ judgement. Tim is sent to Holland to shadow Barbara Day to see if she makes any shady contacts.

Barbara Day seems to be just what she is, a partner in an antiques business. Tim returns to London, only to meet a weird situation. He discovers the body of American tourist in Barbara’s apartment. The cops think Tim knows more than he is saying and boss Ross tells Tim that he is on his own in dealing with the cops.

The story is complicated without confusion. Weird artifacts like metronomes and tulip bulb catalogs stir up our curiosity. Iffy bad guys start fights and attempt murder, though violence is minimized. There’s a Master Controller that even the thugs are scared of, mortally. As I said, Tim as hero is approachable, without the lone hero baggage of Jack Reacher or killer machine relentlessness of John Wick. The writing is smooth and readable despite the frequent and odd use of jarring adverbs like “exasperatingly” and “hostilely.”

Shergar: A True Crime Story of Kidnapping, Racehorse, and Politics by Conrad Bauer

Review by jjares

The Shape of Water by Andrea Camilleri

Review by Matt B. (BuffaloSavage)

This is the first mystery that stars the series hero Commissario Salvo Montalbano. Set in Sicily in the early 1990s, the story opens with two garbage collectors discovering a body near The Pasture, a den of dope dealers, dope takers and prostitutes. The corpse in the BMW is local big shot Silvio Luparello, partly clothed but no apparent signs of suspicious death.

Indeed the local bigwigs seem relieved that Luparello’s autopsy shows that he died of natural causes. They want him below ground as soon as possible. Montalbano is not satisfied because he assumes that appearances are always deceptive. He even comes around to thinking that surviving big shots want the silence over the death to resound, make people mutter about cover-ups, and thus bring Luparello’s political faction into disrepute.

Camilleri didn’t write puzzles so the mystery is not the main draw here. Amazing are the smooth connections between the interviews Montalbano conducts with his superiors and subordinates and persons of interest. The interviews run the gamut, from locker-room smutty to comical to profound (such as the deep explanation of the title).

Montalbano is a brilliant creation. He’s a street-wise man of integrity who takes brave stances against supervisors, bishops, judges, mobsters, managers, land-owners, bureaucrats and all the other syndicates that want to keep The Little Guy down. But he’s also cranky and short-tempered when he’s hungry. Camilleri also includes pointed social critiques, drawing a straight line between the story and the centuries-long history of misgovernment, corruption, and exploitation in Sicily.

Highly recommended. It’s amazing that from the very first novel in the series of 28 Montalbano novels, Camilleri determined what he wanted to do in the books and he did it successfully time after time. That he wrote all these books after the age of 69 should give us of a certain age heart.

The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley

Review by Cyndi J. (cyndij)

Let’s go back to the 1980s for a lovely fantasy from Robin McKinley – THE BLUE SWORD. I don’t remember if it was marketed as YA at the time but it’s on the Newbury Honor Roll. No fairies or elves in this one, but it has lots of other elements of classic high fantasy along with a nice bit of romance.

Angharad Crewe (she prefers Harry) is a young woman whose father has just passed away, leaving her in the care of her older brother Richard. He’s a military officer, posted at a remote desert town in Damar. If you think of the British rule in India you’ll have the scene in mind.  Harry has been invited to stay in the house of the commanding officer, with his wife and two daughters.

Harry is a dutiful young lady but isn’t all that into the normal girlish activities. But she’s grateful to have a place to go, and settles into the rather tedious life in this small community – not without a bit of restlessness, but she’s not going to complain.  And she likes the desert; it calls to her somehow.

There are other people in the desert too, the Hillfolk, who are rumored to have a bit of magic, easily laughed off by the military men. When Corlath, the King of the Hillfolk, asks for a meeting, they’re all stunned but readily agree. It so happens that Harry and her companions, hoping to at least see the mysterious folk, run into Corlath as he’s leaving in a fury. Harry is shaken by something, something in his eyes…

Corlath asked for  help from the military against a threat growing from the North. What help they might be, he wasn’t sure, because the enemy has magic, but he knows his own forces are not going to be a match for them. The Homelanders refuse; it’s not their business plus a war between the two other forces will only strengthen their own position. Corlath can’t explain that the inimical magic of the Northerns will destroy all. But as they ride out he sees Harry. Corlath has the Sight, sometimes, and the Sight tells him Harry is important. This is not pleasing to Corlath, but you gotta do what you gotta do.

Harry wakes up from a drugged sleep to find herself kidnapped, traveling with Corlath’s band toward his town. The men have accepted that she’s important in some way and are kind, and slowly it becomes apparent that Harry does have a contribution to make.  Her training, and how she becomes the new wielder of Gonturan, the legendary Blue Sword, make up the bulk of the novel.

Harry is your classic orphan who comes into surprising powers. She’s perfectly delineated and extremely relatable. Corlath too is an excellent character – his reluctance to use her at all, then his reluctance to put her in harm’s way was a good progression.  McKinley gives real depth to all the characters including the minor ones. Even Narknon the cat and Sungold the horse are distinct personalities.  Excellent world-building too. The enemy is a mysteriously evil force with a malevolent leader, and the battle scenes are vivid.

An aside – after it’s all over, you might notice that conversation between Harry and Corlath becomes couched in strangely formal language.  That happened in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, too, so I wonder if that was a deliberate choice by McKinley.

THE BLUE SWORD is such a good book and plus it’s stand-alone, not as common these days. I also highly recommend McKinley’s second in the same world, THE HERO AND THE CROWN, which tells the story of Aerin, the first wielder of Gonturan.  You can read them in either order, and you should, because they are classics.

Midnight in Europe by Alan Furst

Review by Matt B. (BuffaloSavage)

This 2014 espionage thriller is set in Europe between the wars. A refugee from the Spanish Civil War, Cristián Ferrar works as a lawyer for a prestigious law firm with clients in Paris, New York, and as far east as Budapest. The firm sympathizes with the Spanish Republic against Franco’s Nationalists. Cristián is approached by the Spanish Embassy to procure arms on behalf of the embattled Republic, whose ostensible ally, Stalin’s USSR, is not providing replacement parts and ammunition.

Unlike lots of heroes in spy thrillers, Cristián is not a combat infantry veteran or old hand in a tough-guy job like a walking boss of lumberjacks or manager of a heroin factory. He’s just a quick-witted professional who does his duty when his government, his country, asks him to do his part. Furst has faith that ordinary people will step up to the plate when the going gets rough.

Cristián soon finds himself in various European cities with arms merchant Max de Lyon, who’s been there and done that when it comes to gun-running. Furst convincingly portrays Berlin in 1938 as a place smothered by secret police. We readers are also convinced by the settings of the tough shipyards of Gdansk and low-class sporting houses in Istanbul.

The novel is divided up into episodes in which Cristián and Max have to call on all their smarts and resourcefulness. The best set-piece is the last, in which Max’s confederates in Odessa manage to use Stalin’s system of terror against itself and pull off an audacious heist. The climax involves getting the maguffin back to Valencia on a tramp steamer.

While there is not much shooting and stuff blowing up real good, it’s gripping thriller material.