Smokescreen: A True Adventure Book

Robert Sabbag's astonishing "novel" Smokescreen portrays the real adventures of a real hero of the American underground. Allen Long began as a documentary film-maker following a number of drug dealers and smugglers through the highs and comedowns of getting illicit materials to those who most want them. He then decided, connoisseur that he was of the almost mythical Columbian gold, that smuggling marijuana himself may very well be the best way to fund his film--and the lavish Hollywood lifestyle to go along with it that soon made him forget his more artistic aspirations. Snowblind, Robert Sabbag's previous book, a classic account of cocaine smuggling, looked unlikely to be bettered but Smokescreen somehow manages just that. The book has a marvellous swagger: it is well crafted, cleverly paced and genuinely thrilling. It is also very funny. Opening with a highly tense report of landing on an invisible runaway deep in the Columbian forest (and barely making it because the rainy season had arrived), loading the best pot available to American-kind and then detailing the abortive attempt to get back to the home country to sell the gear, the novel then moves back in time and shows how Long became such a key player in the dope trade and how he came to be flying a DC3 into the most dangerous of the Latin American badlands. Smokescreen looks likely to establish itself as more than an underground classic. Sabbag is a fine writer and Smokescreen is a riveting read that will appeal to a much wider audience than the heads and hippies who will relish smiling knowingly along with the author's counter-cultural references.--Mark ThwaiteRead More