Law of the jungle : the hunt for Colombian guerrillas, American hostages, and buried treasure
/ John Otis
- 1st ed.
- New York, NY : William Morrow , c2010.
- x, 353 p., [16] p. of plates : ill. ; 24 cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Air America -- El Gordo -- Into the wild -- The great divide -- God's little gift -- Blade creep -- Three gringos -- Lion's den -- Bonfires -- Community chest -- The messenger -- Land of Oz -- Miracle fishing -- The round-up -- The eighth plague of Valledupar -- Joan of Arc -- The dirty thirty -- Fall guys -- The one who got away - Sideshow Hugo -- The masked avenger -- Neck and neck -- Eyes on -- The unthinkable -- Checkmate -- Passports -- Epilogue: Living to tell the tale.
Written as a spine-tingling, true-life adventure story, this is the tale of three American contractors - Marc Gonsalves, Keith Stansell, Thomas Howes - taken hostage in 2003 when their plane went down while they were taking surveillance photos of cocaine laboratories as part of a counternarcotics mission for the Pentagon in Colombia. They were fortunate to survive the plane crash, but their luck turned when Marxist guerrillas found and captured them within hours, ultimately holding them hostage in the Colombian jungle for five unbearably long years. These same guerrillas were dumbfounded when they stumbled upon a hidden stash of 20 million; their days morphed into a mad frenzy involving a bacchanalian atmosphere filled with alcohol and prostitutes. This well-documented tale ends in 2008 with the incredibly risky rescue of the hostages, a scenario that could easily have gone awry. Verdict A fast-paced, high-octane read by a seasoned reporter (Otis is a contributor to Time) who knows the ins and outs of Colombia, its war lords, and the drug cartel, this will appeal most to those who love real-life adventure stories, as well as those interested in current events and America's war on drugs.