There was a time when civilisation as we know it hinged on the demise of Pablo Escobar, the Colombian drug lord who controlled most of his country's cocaine industry.
Eight years later, the Colombian drug industry thrives and spreads its tentacles abroad while the US government has come to the aid of civilisation once more, tackling a new strain of Colombian evil: the "narco-terrorist".
This book charts the rise and fall of this remarkable gangster, who controlled politicians, journalists, judges, police and army, killing anyone who got in his way.
Escobar was a teenage hoodlum who graduated from robbing cars to leading a multi-billion dollar drug empire, buying tropical animals and teenage girls while financing housing projects and neighbourhood fiestas.
Escobar even wormed his way into parliament, where he survived long enough to have his picture taken beside the future president, Victor Gaviria.
His downfall lay in his craving for respectability, an outlaw obsessed with status who blew his cover and forced a reluctant government to take action. The rival Cali cartel was content to buy politicians rather than join their ranks, ensuring a more fruitful relationship with the state.
Mark Bowden is at his best when describing the tension of the US-backed hunt for Escobar which hinged on Centra Spike, a satellite tracking system which could pinpoint a mobile phone call to within a hundred metres. If Pablo had stayed off the phone, he probably would never have been caught.
The book, however, has one serious flaw. The author relies for his information mainly on US military sources: 1,000 pages of cables from the US embassy in Bogota to Washington, and the testimony of a former US ambassador to Colombia who "kindly re_viewed an early draft of the story".
His Colombian contacts are part of an elite group of pro-US power brokers, far-removed from the daily hardships facing ordinary citizens. The author's bias infuses each chapter with a whiff of moral superiority: analysts who back the Washington consensus are reasonable types, whereas critics of state power, like writer Ana Carrigan, are dismissed as "angry".
Colombia's oligarchy, one of the most brutal in the region, made its fortunes through stealing land from the poor, then hiring politicians, police and judges to enforce its reign of terror.
Bowden's contempt for Colombians is barely concealed when he describes Escobar as "an ugly caricature of his country, unthinkably rich in natural resources but violent, stoned, defiant and proud".
Colombians are generous and warm-hearted, as angry as anyone at the pariah status their country has achieved.
There is, however, a small group of people directly involved in the drug trade who, like any mafia organisation, defend its privileges by any means necessary. Colombians are not lacking in integrity or moral principles; they lack faith in their authorities, who cannot protect anti-corruption activists nor prosecute known criminals.
The CIA station chief, Bill Wagner's main goal in Colombia, writes Bowden, was to establish a link between drugs and guerrillas "that would justify pushing anti-narcotics work from the realm of law enforcement into the realm of war". Wagner got his way, as the hunt for Escobar gave way to Plan Colombia, the latest drug combat plan, focusing on "narco-terrorists" - shorthand for left-wing rebels. The body count will be huge.
The book also demonstrates how US agents supplied intelligence to death squads in defiance of US congressional limits, but Bowden brushes aside any moral qualms:; "It was about democracy, rule of law, standing up for justice and civilisation."
Bowden, a disciplined researcher, also overlooks an embarrassing bust in which a drug ring was discovered inside the US embassy in Bogota, in 1999. On a recent visit to San Francisco, California, I watched several cars pull up to a busy intersection and wait for teenagers to hand over drugs for cash, as casually as selling a newspaper at a traffic light.
Small wonder that Escobar was widely admired in Colombia, a two-fingered salute to a hypocritical enemy which demanded blood sacrifice from Colombians, but turned a blind eye at home.
Michael McCaughan is a freelance journmalist who reports regularly for The Irish Times from Latin America.