A Shadow in the City
Confessions of an Undercover Drug Warrior
By Charles Bowden
(Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Hardcover, 9780151011834, 320pp.)
Publication Date: July 2005
Other Editions of This Title: Paperback
Categories: Other Miscellaneous Crimes, Political Freedom & Security - Law Enforcement
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Joey O'Shay is not the real name of the narcotics agent in an unnamed city in the center of the country. But Joey O'Shay exists. The nearly three hundred drug busts he has orchestrated over more than two decades are real, too; if the drug war were a declared war, O'Shay would have a Silver Star.
With nerves and mastery worthy of his subject, Charles Bowden follows O'Shay as he sets in motion his latest conquest, a $50 million heroin deal that originates in Colombia and has federal agents sitting at attention from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C., to New York City. As it unfolds, O'Shay reveals the unerring instinct and ceaseless vigilance that have led him through minefields and brought down kingpins. But now they have led him to a place where it isn't so clear who the heroes are or what the fight has been for. And still the warrior fights on, in a murky and unforgiving landscape readers will not be able to forget.
CHARLES BOWDEN is a writer whose work appears regularly in Harper's, GQ, and other national publications. He is the author of several previous books of nonfiction, including Down by the River. He lives in Tucson, Arizona.
PRAISE FOR DOWN BY THE RIVER
"An extraordinary book-daring, genre-bending, literary, and wise." -CHICAGO TRIBUNE
"If it's the ugly truth about the war on drugs you're after, you won't find a better-and better-written-piece of reporting." -ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY
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