“We want to believe that cocaine use and trafficking are part of some netherworld that never t

“We want to believe that cocaine use and trafficking are part of some netherworld that never touches most of us. Italian journalist Saviano argues that it is everywhere and affects nearly every aspect of our lives. Author of the highly acclaimed Gomorrah (2007), Saviano has lived under 24-hour police protection since his exposé on the Neapolitan Mob and here continues his admitted obsession with international crime networks. In the thoroughly engaging narrative, he details the connections between an international network of drug traffickers that make up narcocapitalism. In the 1980s, organized crime syndicates introduced their traditions into the South American drug organizations, traditions that have since spread through Russia and Africa, as well. Later, the privatizing of territories strengthened local investment and made it more difficult to break up the entire operation, promising an exponential increase in efficiency, profitability, and violence. Saviano begins each section with a stream-of-consciousness riff on the ubiquity of cocaine use, the lexicon of incredible names used to describe cocaine, and the wildly imaginative schemes for getting it past customs. With keen observation and deep probing, Saviano is an anthropologist and philosopher as much as a journalist. This is an epic account of how the modern cocaine trafficking business came to be and how widespread, how impenetrable, and how intertwined with international commerce and politics—and our everyday lives—it is.”

— Vanessa Bush, Booklist Review