Drug warrior Inside the hunt for El Chapo and the rise of America's opioid crisis

Retired DEA agent Riley reviews his three decades of combating drug traffickers in this gripping memoir. Riley was at the forefront of the efforts to apprehend Mexican drug lord JoaquA-n "El Chapo" GuzmA¡n Loera, currently on trial in New York for drug trafficking. Riley joined the DEA in 1985 and soon began working undercover, where he quickly realized the futility of racking up arrest statistics that removed a street dealer from a corner for a short while, but did nothing to address the larger organization supplying that dealer. His successes led to more and more responsibility within the DEA, where he pushed for interagency efforts to target entire cartels. In 1995, he heard about El Chapo, a Mexican crime boss who stood out because the Colombians paid him in drugs to distribute their cocaine within the U.S. Other Mexican drug lords soon followed El Chapo's lead, and with their own supply of cocaine, they were able to push the Colombians out of the U.S. market. Over the course of decades, Riley zealously pursued El Chapo, efforts that eventually paid off with his most recent apprehension in 2016 and his extradition to the U.S. Riley doesn't regard the war on drugs as close to over, noting that law enforcement can't be solely responsible for combating widespread drug addiction. This accessible look at the dangerous work of the men and women of the DEA deserves a wide audience. (Feb.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

The former acting head of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Riley, with Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Weiss, recounts his dogged 32-year pursuit of the man most responsible for America's drug epidemic: Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán Loera, leader of Mexico's Sinaloa cartel. As one might expect from an officer more comfortable in the street than behind a desk, Riley effectively and straightforwardly describes how Guzmán stoked demand to increase profit from his supply and used violence, bribery, and planning to control and defend his operations, all while staying one step ahead of his would-be captors. Riley also comments (repeatedly but justifiably) on the frustration felt by the DEA owing to the ignorance of lawmakers and politicians who didn't grasp the scale of harm Guzmán and his cartel were causing. The assertion that continuous interagency communication is critical to the success of law enforcement seems patently obvious, and readers will sympathize with Riley's efforts to drive this point home to those in power. VERDICT For readers who enjoy true tales of heroic good guys chasing evil bad guys and fans of the podcast Chapo: Kingpin on Trial.-Ricardo Laskaris, York Univ. Lib., Toronto © Copyright 2019. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

A leading Drug Enforcement Agency officer recounts his long battle against South American cartels and a Mexican kingpin.As Riley's memoir opens, he's on the run, being chased on a Texas highway into New Mexico by hit men in the employ of Joaqun Guzmn Loera, better known as El Chapo. He was outgunned, but somehow he got out of it, whereupon he turns back the clock to the beginning of his career. After turning down an offer from the more prestigious FBI, he joined the DEA and went to war against the Colombian cartel, then personified by Pablo Escobar, whose "real-life narrative was straight out of a Hollywood gangster movie." Escobar was also a smart businessman who knew a market when he saw it, flooding the insatiable United States with cocaine. By Riley's lights, El Chapo was worse yet, a vicious criminal who conducted at least some of his enterprise from the safety of a Mexican prison. The author notes that El Chapo wasn't just involved in cocaine and marijuana, but was a leading purveyor of opioids: "While I believe that many are responsible for our nation's drug crisis, including unscrupulous doctors, pharmacies, wholesale drug distributors, drug companies, and the banking industry, none played a bigger criminal role than El Chapo." Flushing him out of hiding after his escape from prison and getting him extradited to the U.S. was no easy matter, but it provides a satisfying payoff to Riley's eventful story. There's a by-the-numbers aspect to the narrative, including the requisite tough-guy language (the bad guys are "scumbags" and "jagoffs," among other choice epithets), as well as complaints about the typical bureaucratic hassles involved in honoring the Fourth Amendment. But Riley is an equal-opportunity despiser of those who got in the way, including actor Sean Penn ("an exploitative asshole") and Utah congressman Jason Chaffetz ("This dickhead had no idea how hard I worked, or even what DEA agents did").A sturdy, unadorned tale of true crime and its foes. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.