I'm not sure what exactly prompted me to pick up El Chapo: The Untold Story of the World's Most Infamous Drug Lord, by Noah Hurowitz. I bought it earlier this year from Greenlight Bookstore, where I used to work; it was kind of a big-deal book at the store and it piqued my curiosity as a true-crime reader. I think he's local to one of the stores and did some signing. It's a pretty good read.
The first half or so centers on the various players in the Mexican drug scene, their relationships, their fights, the incredible amounts of violence they generate that affect each other and innocent bystanders. This part of the book is page-turning but also incredibly depressing. Awful people being awful to each other and others. We also learn about El Chapo's big escape from prison in Mexico and how truly unbelievably corrupt the whole system is, from the very top all the way on down.
Then we get into what was for me the more interesting part of the book, about the operation to take El Chapo down, which starts with the most unlikely of players- El Chapo's IT guy. The story of this guy, how and why he was persuaded to cooperate with the FBI and the details of the efforts to take El Chapo down are fascinating and compelling. This part of the story also gets more into El Chapo's personality and his personal relationships because these details figure prominently in El Chapo's online life and how he managed the technology that ran his empire. Soap-opera-worthy doesn't even begin to describe it.
And I learned a lot of (depressing) things along the way about the drug trade, the gun trade and governments of both Mexico and the United States.
Anyway I would definitely recommend El Chapo to the true crime reader or anyone interested in any of the topics I mentioned above. Hurowitz's reporting will keep you tied to and turning the pages. It's a book I stayed up past my bedtime to keep reading more than once!
FTC Disclosure: I did not receive this book for review.
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