Called "a triumphant piece of reporting" (The New Yorker), Snowblind is an all-out, nonstop, and now classic look at the cocaine trade through the ...
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Oct 10, 2011
Ephraim
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This book is worth reading for several reasons:
1. No matter how you feel about drugs, and cocaine in particular, the author brilliantly and ambitiously unmasks the underground netherworld of cocaine smuggling, and humanizes a notoriously inhuman trade. It takes the nonsense you see Lou Dobbs spouting, with his perfectly fake, immaculately white chompers, on CNN about the notorious killers, thugs, and illicit monsters that smuggle drugs, and makes you realize your 50 year old neighbor may b More...
1. No matter how you feel about drugs, and cocaine in particular, the author brilliantly and ambitiously unmasks the underground netherworld of cocaine smuggling, and humanizes a notoriously inhuman trade. It takes the nonsense you see Lou Dobbs spouting, with his perfectly fake, immaculately white chompers, on CNN about the notorious killers, thugs, and illicit monsters that smuggle drugs, and makes you realize your 50 year old neighbor may b More...
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Jun 02, 2010
Nicholas
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This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.
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Feb 16, 2010
Marian
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Snow Blind: A Brief Career in the Cocaine Trade by Robert Sabbag is a fast-paced story that takes place in the early 1970s, during the peak of the cocaine trade. Through the eyes of smuggler Zachary Swan, Snowblind tells the partly biographical story of Swan’s intricate scams, successful maneuvers, and the actions and his relationships with his various associates, customers, and adversaries. By age 30 Swan, who is an ex- United States Marine born into an upper-class family in New York, is living
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Dec 08, 2011
Kevin
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Fascinating. Pretty much a go-to book if you're trying to get into the mindset of one of most sophisticated and successful (he never served time) drug smugglers to ever come out of the United States. Which I am totally not, obviously. Why would I ever dream of doing that? But just hypothetically speaking... ;)
Aug 17, 2009
Iain
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Dodgy dealings in the world of cocaine smuggling. Interesting if only to read about some of the unbelievable scams these guys got up to (and got away with). Intriguing, unsettling and a bit of a morality lesson.
Mar 23, 2009
Jacob
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i read this a really long time ago, it blew my mind before long before it was ever blown with actual blow, etc. etc. etc.
Nov 07, 2010
Zaki
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Too cool for school. People like Robert Trade, Howards Marks are not criminals but counter culturalists.
Dec 06, 2008
Caty
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A yummy, immensely readable story of middle class drugdealing--refreshingly nonjudgemental, too.
Jan 15, 2011
Anthony
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I read this book years ago. As far as books about the drug trade go this is one of the best.
Nov 05, 2011
Charlie
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An awesome book that details a few of the smuggling operations pulled off by Zachary Swan.
Aug 11, 2011
Paul
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Superb. Hilarious. Scary. A real page-turner. The 'Columbia Gold' coffee scam alone is priceless!
Jan 31, 2008
Gavin
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I read this around the same time as I was conducting a big heroin importation trial and took inspiration from it to have my guy acquitted. It's a sort of biography of a drug trafficker and supremely well written. Enjoyed enormously, even if the poor sap whom it's about obviously had a poor lawyer and spent some time in jail.
Jan 29, 2012
Des
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A very good well written book . It is also an interesting piece of American social history ; the cocaine trade before the cartels took over. I think it's the only banned book I've read. Some idiot politicians/journalists decided that it promoted drug use - what a load of crap.
Jun 08, 2008
Shauna
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Okay so a weird book for me to read, but I think this might be the book that the movie Blow is based off of. It has been awhile since I read it, but I remember I really liked it.
Jan 29, 2012
Old-Barbarossa
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An entertaining account of early ‘70’s entrepreneur in the South American dancing powder trade…less “Scarface”, more a very talkative version of “The Sting”.
Mar 24, 2008
Ben
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Kids, don't try this at home!
But if you want to get the adrenalin pumping via a vicarious contact high, I suppose I can't stop you.
But if you want to get the adrenalin pumping via a vicarious contact high, I suppose I can't stop you.
Jul 27, 2011
Steve
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This is a great book, I was a customs officer at the time, smart and insightful.
Jul 27, 2011
Graham
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Reads like a large address book of dodgey geezers. Dull to the point of tedium.
Feb 06, 2012
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