Death Beat: A Colombian Journalist's Life Inside the Cocaine Wars

This book is courageous. Colombia is a nation on its knees in the late 1980's and early 1990's. Drug lords and their powerful paramilitary armies intimidate the nation. If the drug lords can't corrupt you with money...they kill you. To that end, María Jimena Duzán is an outstanding Colombian journalist for El Espectador and does a gutsy job of documenting the origin and growth of paramilitary activity throughout the nation. Although this book was published in 1994, it helps explain the violence in Colombia today. Sadly, the author's sister is murdered by a paramilitary death squad she is investigating. This book is an excellent stepping stone to understanding the illegal links between the armed forces and paramilitary death squads in Colombia.