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SNATCHED

Name: SNATCHED
Author: Bruce Porter
ISBN: 978-1-250-03177-8

FROM DRUG QUEEN TO INFORMER TO HOSTAGE—A HARROWING TRUE STORY

by Bruce Porter ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 19, 2016

An engaging, improbable true-crime tale that underscores the grandiose futility of the drug war.

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Pulpy account of a glamorous narcotrafficker ensnared by her past.

Former Newsweek writer Porter (Columbia School of Journalism), whose previous book, Blow (1993), spawned a Johnny Depp film and slightly overlaps this tale, writes in a relaxed, comprehensible style that seems a good fit for the true-crime genre. The author constructs a sprawling, mordant narrative about the drug trade, focused on “Pilar,” a noirish Central American femme fatale whose life followed several unlikely, high-risk tangents. As a rebellious, beautiful woman from an upper-class Colombian family, Pilar became involved with the burgeoning cocaine business of the 1980s, marrying two large-scale smugglers and participating in deals that permitted an addictively luxurious lifestyle. But once she’d settled in South Florida and extricated herself from the business, an imprisoned ex-husband “shopped” her to a DEA–run task force. With little resistance, she became a confidential informant in 1991, purportedly turning to the cash-laundering sideline that the cartels required, although her handlers “didn’t buy the altruistic bullshit Pilar had expressed as her motivation.” Still, the ambitious cops recognized Pilar’s value: “Luring big operators out of their lair…that was the fantasy that captured the task force.” Porter develops verisimilitude through interviews with major players, who engage in caustic recall about Pilar. Her money laundering setup worked too well, unnerving the feds, who began demanding arrests as well as intelligence. Indeed, every character seems motivated by cynicism: the macho agents seem addicted to the seized funds, while Pilar’s scheme resulted in the murders of at least two middlemen. In 1995, as the increasingly complex operation was encountering friction in Washington, D.C., Pilar was kidnapped in Cali, supposedly by revolutionaries. Released after a few months of labyrinthine negotiations and eventually diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, Pilar sued the government over their negligent handling of her, only receiving a settlement in 2014.

An engaging, improbable true-crime tale that underscores the grandiose futility of the drug war.

Pub Date: April 19, 2016

ISBN: 978-1-250-03177-8

Page Count: 336

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2016

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2016

Categories:

TRUE CRIME

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DOUBLE JEOPARDY

OBSESSION, MURDER, AND JUSTICE DENIED

by Bob Hill ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 1995

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Gut-wrenching account of a brutal 1988 rape/murder in Louisville, Ky., and the miscarriage of justice that resulted when killer's prosecution was botched. Louisville Courier-Journal feature writer Hill begins with the disappearance of Brenda Schaefer in September 1988. Her family and the police suspected that her fiancÇ, Mel Ignatow, was responsible, but no physical evidence linked him to the possible crime. After 16 months, Mary Ann Shore-Inlow, Ignatow's mistress, confessed to having been coerced into helping him bury Schaefer's body and led authorities to it. The FBI hastily set up a wiretap in which Shore- Inlow was to initiate a conversation about the burial, but the results were ambiguous and poorly recorded. The arrest was made despite these complications, but the jury refused to convict Ignatow based solely on Shore-Inlow's testimony. Community outrage prompted the authorities to retry the case on federal charges of perjury (since he could not be tried twice for murder). In the interim, Ignatow's house had been sold, and the new inhabitants discovered graphic photographs of the crime hidden under the carpet. This evidence was used to force him to plead guilty to the federal charges, and he received the maximum penalty: eight years and one month, of which he will serve five—about the same that Shore-Inlow received for her plea bargain. The author relates this tragic tale with an overly obsessive attention to detail (even providing the high school background of the rug installers who discovered the photographs) that prompts the uneasy feeling Hill is stalking rather than researching the story—an effect most pronounced when he details the type, color, and size of the socks and underwear worn by the victim on the day she was murdered. Effectively executed, but a repulsive story nonetheless.

Pub Date: July 1, 1995

ISBN: 0-688-12910-2

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1995

Categories:

TRUE CRIME

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SINS OF THE SON

by Carlton Stowers ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 21, 1995

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A crime journalist's painfully honest attempt to come to terms with his son's downward spiral into a life of drugs and criminal activity. Stowers, an Edgar winner for Careless Whispers (not reviewed), documents the gradual metamorphosis of his son Anson from a withdrawn teenager into a drug addict who in 1988 brutally murders his ex-wife in a fit of rage. In quasi-confessional style, a professional who has reported on the tragedies of many other families seeks to understand when, in his own son's life, the point of no return was passed. Stowers delves into the early years of his career, when he spent long hours at the office and relocated several times. The tensions caused by his devotion to work take their toll on his first two marriages, which end in bitter divorces, and on his sons, Anson and Ashley. As a teenager, Anson begins to run away for days at a time; eventually he is arrested for breaking into a house and stealing food. His father enrolls him in a drug rehabilitation program, but Anson's problems with both drugs and the law escalate. His first imprisonment comes when he steals his father's car and robs a store in Louisiana; released early and still severely addicted to drugs, Anson beats, stabs, and strangles his ex-wife, Annette; pleading guilty, he returns to prisonthis time for at least two decades. As Stowers struggles with this painful past, he seems to have missed the uncomfortable irony inherent in using a book to sort out his feelings about a tormented son whose problem was in large part that his father was too wrapped up in writing books. Compelling, but morally troubling. (10 b&w photos, not seen)