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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars
Ho Hum,
By
This review is from: Black Eagles (Paperback)
This is an interesting and well-written, if predictable, book about the CIA and the DEA, and the war in Central America that was fought against the contras. The theme of the book is that the CIA, in their zeal to support their cause in Central America, helped cause the crack cocaine epidemic in the United States. While many (mostly on the left, though some conservatives have suggested this, too) seem to think that the CIA did this, the actual evidence for it is pretty thin, and mainly consists of testimony from convicted drug runners who are desperate to receive reduced sentences in return for "telling all they know" about their involvement with the CIA.The story works as a giant flashback, with the start of the story showing the one character committing suicide when confronted with the possibility of arrest at the hands of the other, the DEA guy. We then go back to the end of the Viet Nam war, and the two characters meet, fighting over whether the CIA should be helping heroin smugglers in Southeast Asia. Then the book shifts gears, and the focus shifts to Central America, which is the main part of the book. The CIA guy, Lind, goes to Panama and winds up cultivating Manuel Noriega as an asset for the agency, using his country to smuggle arms to the Contras, launder money, and help spy on other nations hostile to the U.S. Noriega cooperates most of the time, and for a while the relationship is profitable for both sides. But at some point Noriega gets greedy, and starts having the smugglers who are moving guns into Nicaragua also move cocaine into the United States. Lind eventually figures out that Noriega's doing this, but he and his superiors don't care: all they're interested in is the CIA's secret war in Central America. Meanwhile, Lind has gotten himself a girlfriend, a Panamanian woman who's naturally an opponent of Noriega's. The whole thing gets pretty predictable, plot-wise. The story sort of sags in the middle. It takes it forever to get anywhere for some time, and the DEA character, Kevin Grady, doesn't appear for 100 pages or so, except once or twice briefly. The book is really more about Lind, and how's he's corrupted into aiding and abetting the drug trade in Central America. Of course most of the stuff about the CIA's involvement in Central America is fictional, at least as far as anyone knows. The author acts like he knows all of this *did* happen, and he constantly drops names to try and make the story seem believable...everyone from George Bush to Oliver North makes at least a cameo appearance. The author really badly wants to convince you that the CIA is evil and corrupt, though I suspect he'd say they're more seduced by power than anything else. Regardless, from what I've heard the book is a bit of an exaggeration, if not an outright fabrication. It's an interesting story, reasonably well-written, and within limits I enjoyed it. Just remember, though...it is fiction.
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