Book description
One of the most violent countries on earth, where the cause of death is
regularly 'massacre', drink drivers play chicken and kidnap stories pass
for dinner party conversation; nine times more dangerous than the United
States, Colombia is no place for the nervous traveller. So it is much
against his better judgement that, in the summer of 1998, coinciding
with a World Cup and a general election, journalist Stephen Smith finds
himself boarding the Cocaine Train out of Cali, home of Colombia's
infamous drugs cartel.
Its passengers prey to thieves, extortionists and a dozen different
varieties of paramilitary, the Cocaine Train is one of the last remnants
of a once great railway system, and Smith is riding in it in search of a
grandfather he barely knew: Fred Leslie Frost, pioneering railwayman,
upright citizen and diplomat, with a Colombian mistress and an
illegitimate son. As remote from his suburban British origins as it is
possible to imagine. Steven Smith works for Channel 4 news and writes
regularly for the LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS.
