Killing Pablo: The Hunt for the World's Greatest Outlaw

Mark Bowden

Dec 2007 · Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

About this ebook

“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.

Ratings and reviews

I am a very big fan of Breaking Bad, and they showed this book. "The bad guys get all the ink but the guys who brought him down are rarely mentioned" was the quote, got me interested, bought it, couldn't put it down. Extremely good read.

Excellent book! The best book on Pablo Escobar that I have read! I especially enjoyed the author's description of Hugo Martinez, the son, whose heroic efforts led them to Escobar. Bowden gives credit to many people in this book and rightly so. He also explains the inevitable rivalries that ensued and how complicated this effort was. This book is well worth reading!

A thrilling read on the rise of the once-was the world's richest man. A criminal psychopath, a deft and devoted strategist, a business mastermind. Certainly worth turning the pages of before watching the Netflix series on the same man

About the author

Mark Bowden has been a reporter at The Philadelphia Inquirer for twenty-one years and has won many national awards for his writing. He is the author of "Black Hawk Down," "Bringing the Heat," "Doctor Dealer", "Killing Pablo: The Hunt for the World's Greatest Outlaw." and, more recently, The Finish: "The Killing of Osama bin Laden", and Hue 1968: A Turning point of the American war in Vietnam. Bowden has also written for Talk, Men's Journal, Sports Illustrated, Rolling Stone and Playboy, among others. The original series of articles which became "Black Hawk Down" earned him the Overseas Press Club's Hal Boyle Award, and made him a finalist for the NBA in nonfiction.