Forsyth takes one what is usually misnamed drug trade but ought to be properly referred to as narcotics, and Forsyth does not mix the terms, to be fair - drugs include those that are in fact legitimate sold in a pharmacy with or without prescriptions from medical authority, and the term ought to be reserved for that part of substances, whether abused or not. For instance in poorer social strata people have been known to abuse fuel meant for stoves (less refined variation of petroleum) or glue, and they certainly do not qualify as drugs in any way, but have lethal effects along the lines of narcotics (hence the abuse). A better term in general would be abusive substances.
Descriptions of the narcotics and especially cocaine industry are extensive as are the financial and trade organisation structures involved along with logistics, and its well known social devastating consequences are given briefly since most of western society is by now all too familiar with those.
As usual there is excellent and well thought out plans about what can be done to cripple the said trade in a few short devastating blows - although this book sort of nullifies the effectiveness of them, so if anything such procedures must either have been gone through already or they are of little use (yes, the drones and gps etcetera can take out the small planes and sea vessels, but the disinformation requires lack of forewarning to be totally effective, as does the surprise "normal" raid to capture any corrupt officials). Possibly they have been used, or there are better variations not leaked here.
Devastating is the anticlimax where it becomes all too obvious why such measures must and do fail in US, which is, politics and dependence of politicians on elections by a populace unwilling to stomach the death throws of the narcotics trade which involves gang wars and innocent people caught in crossfire. So just when the whole thing is about to collapse effectively, it is reigned in, and the cocaine trade resumes - with a surprise or two yet by the pair that made the war against it happen.
A fortunate by product of the paranoia pervading US in particular and the aviation industry in general since about a decade ago is the inability of huge streams of carriers of narcotics to get through various entry channels into countries where markets offer a high payoff, all too believable. Then again, there is always the spectre of the corrupt baggage handler who can choose your bag at random. But now that such baggage is always x-rayed at point of boarding, that ought to be clearly impossible. So one hopes. Plight of the innocent Miss Arenal is a separate horror. Here it is a conspiracy, but it could very well happen to anyone caught in a war of a rich nation against another, less powerful one.
These are some of the books I read during last half a century or so, and some of the thoughts, questions, reactions and insights, emotions - and so forth -, evoked on reading them, either then or later sometime during the interim years and decades, or even thinking over now, that are summed up here while trying to record my impressions about what I read.
Serene, Reflecting
Life Recedes