Pure Narco

For a quarter century, Luis Antonio Navia worked as a high-level cocaine transporter for all of the major Colombian and Mexican drug cartels, including Pablo Escobar’s Medellín Cartel, and flooded the United States and Europe with cocaine before his dramatic arrest in Venezuela in 2000 during the 12-nation Operation Journey. The story of Navia’s rise, fall, takedown, imprisonment, and redemption is expertly researched and told by acclaimed biographer Jesse Fink, who has gathered interviews with Navia, Navia’s family, and a dozen law-enforcement agents in the United States and Great Britain from agencies such as the DEA, ICE and Her Majesty’s Customs and Excise (now Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs). Told in vivid detail, this true crime story will captivate the reader from start to finish.

How does a young student majoring in Portuguese at Georgetown University in Washington, DC become one of the biggest drug smugglers on Earth? And how does he survive 25 years in the trade - and encounters with some of its most powerful and ruthless figures, from Pablo Escobar to Alberto Sicilia Falcon - when he hates violence and never carries a gun? In his decades in the business, the savvy, charismatic Luis Navia was responsible for hundreds of tonnes of cocaine making their way across the globe. In the process, he became a multimillionaire, but while living as a fugitive spent heavily on a lavish but wasteful lifestyle. All while Luis - torn between guilt and adrenalin - tried to maintain a semblance of normal family life as he frequently veered out of control. In Pure Narco, Jesse Fink brilliantly tells this incredible story through the eyes of Luis, his family, and his wife and former lovers - as well as the relentless American law-enforcement officials who finally swooped and brought him to justice. It's a white-powdered, white-knuckle ride you'll never forget.

What drug lords learned from big business How does a budding cartel boss succeed (and survive) in the 300 billion illegal drug business? By learning from the best, of course. From creating brand value to fine-tuning customer service, the folks running cartels have been attentive students of the strategy and tactics used by corporations such as Walmart, McDonald's, and Coca-Cola. And what can government learn to combat this scourge? By analyzing the cartels as companies, law enforcers might better understand how they work—and stop throwing away 100 billion a year in a futile effort to win the “war” against this global, highly organized business. Your intrepid guide to the most exotic and brutal industry on earth is Tom Wainwright. Picking his way through Andean cocaine fields, Central American prisons, Colorado pot shops, and the online drug dens of the Dark Web, Wainwright provides a fresh, innovative look into the drug trade and its 250 million customers. The cast of characters includes “Bin Laden,” the Bolivian coca guide; “Old Lin,” the Salvadoran gang leader; “Starboy,” the millionaire New Zealand pill maker; and a cozy Mexican grandmother who cooks blueberry pancakes while plotting murder. Along with presidents, cops, and teenage hitmen, they explain such matters as the business purpose for head-to-toe tattoos, how gangs decide whether to compete or collude, and why cartels care a surprising amount about corporate social responsibility. More than just an investigation of how drug cartels do business, Narconomics is also a blueprint for how to defeat them.

‘War’ is no exaggeration in discussing the bloodshed that has terrorized Mexico in the past decades. As rival cartels battle for control of a billion-dollar drug trade, the body count - 23,000 dead in five years - and sheer horror beggar the imagination of journalistic witnesses. Cartel gunmen have attacked schools and rehabilitation centers, and murdered the entire families of those who defy them. Reformers and law enforcement officials have been gunned down within hours of taking office. Headless corpses are dumped on streets to intimidate rivals, and severed heads are rolled onto dancefloors as messages to would-be opponents. And the war is creeping northward, towards the United States. El Narco is the story of the ultraviolent criminal organizations that have turned huge areas of Mexico into a combat zone. It is a piercing portrait of a drug trade that turns ordinary men into mass murderers, as well as a diagnosis of what drives the cartels and what gives them such power. Veteran Mexico correspondent Ioan Grillo traces the gangs from their origins as smugglers to their present status as criminal empires. The narco cartels are a threat to the Mexican government - and their violence has now reached as far as North Carolina. El Narco is required reading for anyone concerned about one of the most important news stories of the decade.

The death of Bon Scott is the Da Vinci Code of rock In death, AC/DCÕs trailblazing frontman has become a rock icon, and the legend of the man known around the world simply as ÒBonÓ grows with each passing year. But how much of it is myth? At the heart of Bon: The Last Highway is a special Ñ and unlikely Ñ friendship between an Australian rock star and an alcoholic Texan troublemaker. Jesse Fink, author of the critically acclaimed international bestseller The Youngs: The Brothers Who Built AC/DC, reveals its importance for the first time. Leaving no stone unturned in a three-year journey that begins in Austin and ends in London, Fink takes the reader back to a legendary era for music that saw the relentless AC/DC machine achieve its commercial breakthrough but also threaten to come apart. With unprecedented access to BonÕs lovers, newly unearthed documents, and a trove of never-before-seen photos, Fink divulges startling new information about BonÕs last hours to solve the mystery of how he died. Music fans around the world have been waiting for the original, forensic, unflinching, and masterful biography Bon Scott so richly deserves Ñ and now, finally, itÕs here.

How does a young student majoring in Portuguese at Georgetown University in Washington, DC become one of the biggest drug smugglers on Earth? And how does he survive 25 years in the trade - and encounters with some of its most powerful and ruthless figures, from Pablo Escobar to Alberto Sicilia Falcon - when he hates violence and never carries a gun? In his decades in the business, the savvy, charismatic Luis Navia was responsible for hundreds of tonnes of cocaine making their way across the globe. In the process, he became a multimillionaire, but while living as a fugitive spent heavily on a lavish but wasteful lifestyle. All while Luis - torn between guilt and adrenalin - tried to maintain a semblance of normal family life as he frequently veered out of control. In Pure Narco, Jesse Fink brilliantly tells this incredible story through the eyes of Luis, his family, and his wife and former lovers - as well as the relentless American law-enforcement officials who finally swooped and brought him to justice. It's a white-powdered, white-knuckle ride you'll never forget.

If you've had your heart broken/been on the dating scene/had sex, read Laid Bare. Unputdownable.' Kerri Sackville, author of The Little Book of Anxiety on LAID BARE A nakedly honest account of one man's emotional and mental oblivion after separation and divorce. And how online dating and sex saved him from despair. Jesse Fink never thought it would happen to him. But it did. His wife of ten years and mother of his child walked out on him and into the arms of another man. In that moment he lost his best friend, his soul mate, his family, his identity. His wife's new lover even got his dog. What came next was a freefall of the soul that would take him from contemplating cutting his wrists to sleeping with hundreds of women. He jumped headlong into the brutal and sometimes dangerous world of online dating. He visited brothels and massage parlours. He fell for a prostitute. He flew off to Hollywood to connect with a beautiful woman he met online and found himself in the kitchen of the real-life Bridget Jones. With remarkable frankness, Jesse opens up about his complicity in the failure of his marriage, his battles with OCD, his struggles as a single dad, his sex addiction and his desperate desire to find love. He shares it all - the good, the bad and the ugly. His chance at personal salvation finally comes in the unconditional love of his eight-year-old daughter. Next time, if he pays attention, he might just get it right. PRAISE for LAID BARE 'A great book' Australian Penthouse 'X-rated, honest and compelling, this is a must-read for any man dating online.' Men's Health 'Raw as hell. Love as an open scar. A book with heart that rings with truth. Fink's on his way.' Thomas Jane, star of HUNG 'Fink, an awarded sports journalist, is an excellent writer and storyteller and his book is compelling reading.' The Daily Telegraph (Sydney) and The Courier-Mail (Brisbane)

This book addresses a seemingly simple question: Just how many people really work for the federal government? Official counts show a relatively small total of 1.9 million full-time civil servants, as of 1996. But, according to Paul Light, the true head count is nearly nine times higher than the official numbers, with about 17 million people actually providing the government with goods and services. Most are part of what Light calls the "shadow of government"—nonfederal employees working under federal contracts, grants, and mandates to state and local governments. In this book--the first that attempts to establish firm estimates of the shadow work force-- he explores the reasons why the official size of the federal government has remained so small while the shadow of government has grown so large. Light examines the political incentives that make the illusion of a small government so attractive, analyzes the tools used by officials to keep the official headcount small, and reveals how the appearance of smallness affects the management of government and the future of the public service. Finally, he points out ways the federal government can better manage the shadow work force it has built over the past half-century.