Hunting Che

May 20, 2013
The duo behind 2012’s No Way Out: A Story of Valor in the Mountains of Afghanistan team up again to recount the capture and execution of America’s primary Cold War-era bête noire and the world’s most recognizable rebel: Che Guevara. Along with Fidel Castro, Che helped orchestrate the Cuban Revolution and the overthrow of Fulgencio Batista in 1959. His efforts would make him an idol for 1960s left-wing youth. But when Che and his guerillas turned their attention in the mid-’60s to bringing communism to U.S.-backed Bolivia, the United States decided enough was enough. A U.S. military Special Forces team was sent south to guide a battalion of Bolivian soldiers through a four-month-long crash course in fighting the insurrection. Weiss (a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist) and Maurer (coauthor of No Easy Day) focus primarily on the American operation to take down Che, detailing the tactics and personnel involved, as well as the dramatic play-by-play leading up to the rebel’s execution. The authors are palpably unsympathetic to Che and his cause, and they take a novelist’s license in recreating dialogue and inner thoughts. Fans of by-the-book nonfiction will be skeptical of the docudrama prose, but for more tolerant readers, this offers an entertaining new perspective. Agent: Scott Miller, Trident Media Group.

June 15, 2013
Much like "the day we got Bin Laden," the devil is in the details in this military procedural about one of the few wins of Cold War-era spycraft. Investigative journalist Weiss (No Way Out, 2012, etc.) and co-author Maurer apply many of the same fast-paced stylistic techniques that made a best-seller of Maurer's collaboration with Navy SEAL Team 6's Mark Owen (No Easy Day, 2012). This nonfiction thriller about the manhunt and subsequent execution of radical icon Che Guevara (1928-1967) focuses on his final months fostering a revolution in Bolivia. The authors are fortunate to have an extraordinary cast of characters on which to hang their story. By far the most fascinating is Maj. Ralph "Pappy" Shelton, leader of the Green Berets, whose compassionate ideas about counterinsurgency were decades before their time. He was in country to train the Bolivian army to find, trap and capture Guevara's small army of soldiers. His right-hand man was Gary Prado Salmon, noble commander of the wildly incompetent Bolivian Rangers recruited for the task. The whole affair was crucial to the successful near-dictatorship of President Rene Barrientos Ortuno, whose government was stealing millions in U.S. aid. The spooks working behind the scenes were led by two Cuban exiles-turned-CIA agents: Gustavo Villoldo, whose father committed suicide at Castro's command, and Felix Rodriguez, who successfully infiltrated Cuba in advance of the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion. Blatantly pitched to armchair warriors and airport bookstores, the book is indeed exciting to read. Whether readers buy into the romantic revisionism of the cult of Che or take the authors' position that he was an uncommon thug matters little until the finale. Surprisingly, the coda is more humanizing of its antagonist than readers might expect. A slam-bang military drama whose unambiguous worldview overshadows the larger questions raised by the facts at hand.

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Starred review from August 1, 2013

In the fall of 1967, people in the Bolivian countryside lived in fear--the fear of the presence of the legendary Che Guevara, Argentinean revolutionary and hero of Castro's Cuban Revolution. In an attempt to foment uprisings, Guevara had arrived in poverty-ridden Bolivia to train revolutionaries and lead a peasant movement. Journalists Weiss (Associated Press; coauthor, with Maurer, No Way Out: A Story of Valor in the Mountains of Afghanistan) and Maurer (coauthor, Gentlemen Bastards: On the Ground in Afghanistan with America's Elite Special Forces) tell the story of special forces major Ralph "Pappy" Shelton who, with the aid of U.S. Army Rangers and CIA operatives, trained Bolivians to track and capture Che. After months of preparation, a Bolivian force overwhelmed and captured Guevara and most of his small band of guerrillas in early October 1967. Che was executed on October 9. This book often reads like gripping fiction as the authors use interviews and firsthand accounts to detail the hunt. What clearly comes through is the futility of Guevara's Bolivian efforts, his failure to attract recruits and supplies, and the lack of support from the Communist Party in the region. Che and his revolution were doomed--period. VERDICT Another book on Che--and one with a hugely positive recommendation to all interested readers.--Boyd Childress, formerly with Auburn Univ. Libs., AL

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 1, 2013
This revealing account of Che Guevara's ill-fated guerrilla campaign in Bolivia in 1967 and his capture and excecution by U.S.-aided Bolivian forces offers a new perspective on the iconic revolutionary's last days. Weiss is an investigative journalist for the Associated Press, and Maurer is the coauthor of No Easy Day (2013), which described the mission to track and kill Osama bin Laden. Their description of the molding of the Bolivian units into an effective fighting force by U.S. Green Berets is engrossing, and they provide a detailed account of the final hours of Che's life. In particular, his interrogation by the admirable Bolivian officer Gary Prado is strangely sad and moving, as Che is both reflective and intransigent.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)