Pablo Acosta was no glamour-big shot- He looked like the illegal alien you would see working illegally on a ranch in the hot sun of South Texas. Rough hands, sun-dried skin. I have seen pictures of him other than the book and the book depicts him perfectly. He was a genuine, deep rooted Mexican drug smuggler with nothing to prove other than the fact he knew how to get his drugs across the border and get paid for it. If you like mafia movies, books- if you are looking for genuine stories that depict real life- things you can almost relate to-- this is the book you need to get. It turns you on to the world of real life drug smuggling in Mexico-- The dirtiness of it. The everyday Mexican that turns from a nobody into a native hero and a foreign enemy.


Excellent insight   July 5, 2000
 9 out of 9 found this review helpful

I first read Drug Lord, the Life and Death of a Mexican Kingpin, two years ago and was amazed by the amount of information the author was able to pack into the narrative without bogging it down. For me, it was like a journey through the looking glass, stepping into the distorted realities of a Mexico run by a perverse and frightening political system. I ended up sympathizing with Pablo Acosta, wishing he would save himself by giving up to the Americans. His misdeeds as a border drug trafficker were eclipsed by the ruthless system of government that exploited him. After reading Drug Lord, the stories I read about Mexico in the newspapers made so much more sense. I read the book again recently and was taken this time by the mature, vigorous and sometimes passionate prose. Some of the chapters are in fact brilliant short stories. It took a great deal of courage for an American journalist to explore this border underworld. Perhaps because of the dangers, no other American journalist that I know of has dared to repeat his noteworthy accomplishment. His work is a classic.


great read, flawed conclusion   January 3, 2006
 9 out of 11 found this review helpful

In Drug Lord, Terrence Poppa manages to capture all the elements that a book about America's War on Drugs should have: engrossing, multidimensional heroes and villains, clearly-defined connections between the men and women who move oceans of narcotics across the Rio Grande and the larger governmental interests on both sides of the border that profit, one way or the other, from the trade, and guns, guns, guns. Drug Lord was an engrossing read, which I happened to read while touring the Big Bend area of West Texas. The book had such an impact on me that I made a 100-mile detour to visit Ojinaga, the stage where Pablo Acosta made his rise from dirt-poor campesino to mafia kingpin. Although Ojinaga today does its best to disassociate itself, at least to outsiders, from Acosta's legacy (even this pinche gringo knew better than to walk into a cantina and start asking questions), many of the tangible remnants of the bad old days Poppa describes, such as the smuggler's trucks with questionable propane tanks in the bed and houses surrounded by 12 foot-high cinderblock walls, are still readily visible. Although the book succeeds as narrative and will satisfy anyone interested in the drug war, the conclusion that Poppa comes to can be summed up in one sentence: it is all Mexico's fault. True, the Mexican government is rotten to the core, and six years under Vicente Fox doesn't seem to have changed much. But any honest examination of the War on Drugs must acknowledge the fact that Acosta and those who have come before and after him are only supplying a demand created by Americans; if the Mexicans don't sate that demand, then the Colombians will, and if the Colombians don't sate it, then the Cosa Nostra, or the Russians, and so on and so forth. I found Poppa's willingness to foster the blame for an unwinnable war on the shoulders of a country that has lost so much fighting a conflict whose victory will primarily benefit Americans to be a sad and myopic conclusion to an otherwise great book. Readers wanting an equally-engrossing but more balanced read should try Charles Bowden's Down By The River, about the Amado-Fuentes organization.


A must read true story of real life mafiosos   November 25, 1998
 6 out of 6 found this review helpful

I will start by saying that I am the first Ojinaga native to admit to what was taking place in Ojinaga at the time. I grew up in the small dusty town and my father was a wealthy man and well known. We owned 4 businesses and I got to meet the Drug Lord himself while he was visiting my father at one of the liquor stores. I witness one of the executions that took place on trasvina street. This book is nothing but inside information on one of the most notorious drug lords of our time and the mentor of Amado Carrillo. It's like reading a fiction gangster moive only this is the real thing. No book I've read comes close to detailing as much information and getting the reader involved in the story. If you want to know how Amado "Lord of the Skies" Carrillo got his start and how Mafiosos lived and died, this book is a must read. I lend this book to my professor and friends and they read it in 3 days, you'll be hooked from page one. Goodfellas doesn't come close to this one.


Right on the money!   October 24, 2006
 6 out of 10 found this review helpful

After serving in the Border Patrol in the west Texas area for the last ten years, Poppa's book is the most realistic I have read to date. I get frustrated reading many books, especially when they start blaming the US for Mexico's problems. This books explains clearly corruption in the Mexican system, how it came about, and why it will probably never go away. It also demonstrates how ridiculious our politicians can be in attempting to deal with a government built on and run by corruption.

The story of Pablo is great, but you could just change the name and it would fit many of the other King Pins out there and their lives too. Mexico relishes and charishes Drug Lords as heroes, and that is a fact.

Question? When you have that many millions of people crossing into the United States illegally that have accepted corruption as the way things are done, what will that eventually do to our society?