Hunting El Chapo - by Andrew Hogan & Douglas Century (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Every generation has a larger-than-life criminal: Jesse James, Billy the Kid, John Dillinger, Al Capone, John Gotti, Pablo Escobar. But each of these notorious lawbreakers had a "white hat" in pursuit: Wyatt Earp, Pat Garrett, Eliot Ness, Steve Murphy. For notorious drug lord Joaquín Archivaldo Guzmán-Loera--El Chapo--that lawman is former Drug Enforcement Administration Special Agent Andrew Hogan.

In 2006, fresh out of the D.E.A. Academy, Hogan heads west to Arizona where he immediately plunges into a series of gripping undercover adventures, all unknowingly placing him on the trail of Guzmán, the leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, a Forbes billionaire and Public Enemy No. 1 in the United States. Six years later, as head of the D.E.A.'s Sinaloa Cartel desk in Mexico City, Hogan finds his life and Chapo's are ironically, on parallel paths: they're both obsessed with the details.

In a recasting of the classic American Western on the global stage, Hunting El Chapo takes us on Hogan's quest to achieve the seemingly impossible, from infiltrating El Chapo's inner circle to leading a white-knuckle manhunt with an elite brigade of trusted Mexican Marines--racing door-to-door through the cartel's stronghold and ultimately bringing the elusive and murderous king-pin to justice.

This cinematic crime story following the relentless investigative work of Hogan and his team unfolds at breakneck speed, taking the reader behind the scenes of one of the most sophisticated and dangerous counter-narcotics operations in the history of the United States and Mexico.

From the Back Cover

When Andrew Hogan landed a job with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), little did the hard-charging former deputy sheriff from small-town Kansas know that he would eventually be put on the trail of Joaquín Archivaldo Guzmán Loera, aka El Chapo, the leader of Mexico's Sinaloa Cartel and Public Enemy Number One in the United States. Hogan heads west to Arizona, where he plunges into a series of gripping undercover adventures, each one leading him closer to the most notorious narcotrafficker since Pablo Escobar.

Six years later, as head of the DEA's Sinaloa Cartel desk in Mexico City, Hogan links up with a crack team of agents from Homeland Security Investigations. Working tirelessly on both sides of the border, they start to infiltrate Chapo's sophisticated communications structure, probing deeper into Guzmán's underworld and exposing the drug lord's cleverly disguised network of interconnected safe houses, one by one. . . . But whom can they trust with their intel? Will the details of their top-secret operation leak back to Chapo before the hunt even begins?

Hunting El Chapo follows Hogan as he leads a white-knuckle manhunt with an elite brigade of trusted Mexican marines, piling into military helicopters, armored pickups and SUVs, racing door-to-door through the cartel's stronghold of Sinaloa to track down the elusive and ruthless kingpin before he escapes justice once again.

Review Quotes

"Cinematic....[a] captivating first-person account.... the most authentic glimpse inside the world of El Chapo -- because Hogan actually went there and did what few thought possible." -- USA Today