- Hardcover: 341 pages
- Publisher: Canongate Books Ltd; First edition (2 Feb 2002)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 184195232X
- ISBN-13: 978-1841952321
- Product Dimensions: 23.1 x 16.3 x 3.6 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 539,868 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
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 Thwaite
Review
Described as 'A True Adventure', this is one of the most amazing stories about drugs and their shipment that I have ever read in either fiction or non fiction (this is, in fact, the latter). It starts off with Allen Long and others in a DC3 flying in to Colombia to pick up a huge cache of marijuana. They are warned not to land - rain has turned the primitive runway into a sea of mud - but they do. After loading the plane they crash through trees and have to land. The book is a series of incredible tales of success and failure with a somewhat grim epilogue which tells what happened to the main characters. I gather Canongate outbid other major publishers for this title, and it is a truly remarkable tale - indeed it makes a cracking read.
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First Sentence
Allen Long descended from a short line of American aviators. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
Allen Long descended from a short line of American aviators. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Smokescreen is the true account of Allen Long, the nineteen seventies Robin Hood of pot, and his bid to supply the American pot smoking fraternity with nothing but the best quality marijuana grown on this planet, Santa Marta Gold. After running short on funds to finish the making of a documentary on the farming and smuggling of marijuana into the states, the smoking of which had become one of the fastest growing pastimes since Adam and Eve discovered the apple, Allen Long decides to raise the cash with a one-off drug run out of Mexico, after which he never looked back, or finished the documentary.
Robert Sabbag takes you into a bygone world where Allen Long, a man with more bottle than united dairies, engages on one of the biggest dope smuggling operations as yet attempted. Pushing not only his luck but, unbeknown to them, that of his partners, far beyond any safe limits. Working directly with the Columbian dealers and farmers he embarks on a three-year roller-coaster ride of success and failure in which he evades death, capture, prosecution and worst still, marriage, without ever once carrying a gun. A terrific read.
Robert Sabbag takes you into a bygone world where Allen Long, a man with more bottle than united dairies, engages on one of the biggest dope smuggling operations as yet attempted. Pushing not only his luck but, unbeknown to them, that of his partners, far beyond any safe limits. Working directly with the Columbian dealers and farmers he embarks on a three-year roller-coaster ride of success and failure in which he evades death, capture, prosecution and worst still, marriage, without ever once carrying a gun. A terrific read.
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This book very clearly illustrates the world of the marijuana user and small-scale peddler, who eventually turns to full-scale smuggling. As you would expect from a journalist the author deals (if you’ll pardon the expression) well with the complexities such a subject will inevitably carry.
The many colourful characters in the book are described well, often with the wry humour that the author has utilised successfully in his other book “Snowblind”. The somewhat larger than life main character, Allen Long, about whose life in the book is written, begins in the early days turned on and tuned out. As the book continues we see him metamorphosise through something akin to an airborne Elizabethan privateer, to a hard-nosed businessman in 60s and 70s America.
Mr. Sabbags portrayal of the Colombian “Gaujira”, the people who occupy these badlands and the extent even in those early days of the corruption that have crippled the entire nation are highly evocative. As well as this the way in which he describes the beauty of the less highly populated regions of that country is wonderful.
This is quite a fast paced story, in places it can almost seem jerky. However, it was a gripping book on a fascinating subject, that I found difficult to put down. I will look closely for the next work written by this author.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
If you enjoyed Mr Nice - Howard Marks or Snowblind - also by Sabbag, this is a wothy addition to your library. A great smugglers tale, which if full of cunning, panache and plenty of humor.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Brilliant read
I bought this book after reading Blow: How a Smalltown Boy Made $100 Million with the Medellin Cocaine Cartel and Lost it All, and getting interested in true story drug running... Read more
Published 3 days ago by Mike
Great Read
Great Book. Well put together stories to keep you hooked. Would have been great to have been around back then!
Published 3 months ago by MatWhit
what a flippin page turner....
great characters, really great story telling. you know something is good when you are rooting for the people that you would be usually steer clear off in your everyday life... Read more
Published 9 months ago by JD Reed
a brief thought
From the off, youre on a doomed flight out of Colombia and the story just gets better from there. Plenty of humour and easy to read. Read more
Published on 26 May 2010 by D. V. Mcgee
Another excellent non-fiction adventure and even better double buy
Until reading this page I had no idea that Smokescreen was the later book of the pair, since I ended up buying three copies of this one, the other two as presents for people I knew... Read more
Published on 28 May 2008 by Born Again Bookworm
You had me at smoke...
What a book this is. The narrative is brilliant, the hero is a likeable character than any smoker or soft drug taker can relate to. Read more
Published on 8 Feb 2008 by High Time Dude
A fitting follow up......
With this the second book I have read of Rober Sabaag (Snowblind the 1st) I now rate him as one of the best writers I have ever encountered. Read more
Published on 2 Sep 2002 by goldfish
By page three I realised just how dull my life has been.
Smokescreen is a wonderful account of Allen Long, the nineteen seventies Robin Hood of pot, and his bid to supply the American pot smoking fraternity with nothing but the best... Read more
Published on 27 Feb 2002
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