Killing Che

by Chuck Pfarrer

Book Overview

Chuck Pfarrer's acclaimed Warrior Soul has been called one of the finest memoirs of modern Special Operations Forces. Now the decorated Navy SEAL makes his dazzling fiction debut with this gutsy, riveting thriller about the action-packed hunt for history's most infamous rebel insurgent: Che Guevara.

The year is 1967. Paul Hoyle, a CIA paramilitary officer, has resigned from the agency an incident in Laos that left one man dead and Hoyle's...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0812974115
• ISBN13: 9780812974119
• Release Date: January 2008
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Length: 496 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.2" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Killing Che

Wow...thank you Chuck. This is the kind of book that leaves me feeling "not ready to leave these people." Where I slow down near the end to hold on a little longer. I learned alot about Che and revolution and reasons for them. I'm a new fan of Chuck Pfarrer. Virginia

Warfare and Love in the Bolivian Jungle

Chuck Pfarrer has written a unique novel, weaving together the facts and fiction of Che Guevara's last mission. The guerilla warfare scenes are breath-taking and real; surely only someone with Pfarrer's military experience could write with such authenticity. Che Guevara was a real person, and the reader often holds her breath wanting a better outcome for him than the one history has already given us. Pfarrer gives the reader a sense of Guevara's nobility and helps us to understand that the motives of those engaged in combat are not always clear cut. As in real life, there is romance in unlikely places. Doomed love is more like it, making the surrepticious affairs even more poignant. But those moments are still lovely. This is a compelling story, and the reader won't get much sleep until it's finished. I often woke up in the middle of the night, not unhappy because I could read a few more chapters of Killing Che before turning off the light again. Men will read this book for a lesson in war and learn about love. Women will enjoy the romantic chapters and learn why some men engage in combat. Something for everyone!

Vive Killing Che

Chuck Pfarrer has produced a beautifully written and exhaustively researched historical novel that follows a barely fictional CIA contract agent, Paul Hoyle, on his mission to engineer the liquidation of Che Guevara during his ill-fated 1967 insurgency in Bolivia. In Paul Hoyle, Pfarrer has written a noir character worthy of Hammett or Chandler, a good soldier with scant ethical compunctions who, as his time in Bolivia unfolds, learns that the United States is backing a horribly corrupt government and that he has been sent to kill perhaps the most decent man in Bolivia. The education of Paul Hoyle begins when he falls in love with Maria Agular, the mistress of a Bolivian government official. "[Hoyle] knew he had compromised Maria by becoming her lover; in the trade, this was his handle, the means by which he could control her. ...But he did not control her--yet. Rather, what he had done was to allow her in." Pfarrer paints a canvas similar to the movie "Syriana" in which unspeakable atrocities are committed and millions of people are robbed of fundamental freedoms because no one has the big picture. The world of espionage is powered by the belief that policy makers understand the long term global effects of their policies. This is what allows functionaries like Paul Hoyle to sacrifice their morals, the lives and reputations of others, and even their own lives in the service of their country. Falling in love with a source is a potentially lethal complication. Hoyle's "affection for [Maria] was a liability; intelligence officers are meant to use people, compromise them, coerce them, exploit them, and discard them... . Maria's life and Hoyle's were nothing. They were...mere flyspecks on a vast, intricate machine... ." Similarly, Pfarrer portrays Che Guevara as a selfless instrument of worldwide communist revolution. Che's problem is that he is the real thing, a true believer. The Soviets are threatened by his Maoist tendencies, Castro by Che's drive to enact a worldwide revolution that might displace him, while the Bolivian Communist Party is threatened because it is as corrupt as the Bolivian government. Because he is so idealistic, Che can't fathom that the Soviets, Cubans, and the Bolivian Communist Party wouldn't be wholeheartedly behind him. In fact, these forces, together with the Americans, were out to kill him. Writing an historical novel is a most difficult pursuit. The ending is already known. So why read it? A first answer involves the force of Pfarrer's prose. He sets up each chapter with some of most stunning prose that can be found in contemporary literature. When introducing a chapter in which Hoyle and his main CIA handler, Neil Smith, try to convince the Bolivian authorities that Che Guevara is operating in Bolivia, we are treated to the following: "Light slanted through the windows in Colonel Arquero's grand office. The clock ticked slowly, and Lieutenant Castaneda stood by the door, as immobile and unthin

Very knowledgable author delivers very impressive debut novel

Former Navy SEAL Chuck Pfarrer's memoir, "Warrior Soul", is one of the most well-written, fascinating, modern military reads out there, and his debut novel is just as enjoyable. An historical fiction account of the hunting down of revolutionary and guerilla warfare legend Ernesto 'Che' Guevara, "Killing Che" is the type of novel that would make a great movie as well. Pfarrer brings his extensive tradecraft knowledge to bear, and his experience as a longtime SEAL operator helps give the whole book a heightened sense of realism. Pfarrer's descriptions imerse you right into the heart of the Bolivian jungle-forests, giving you a genuine sense of what it was like for both the guerillas and the agents trying to find them, and his characters - both real and fictional - are very human and rounded out. It's an intelligent, interesting read that isn't too technical, a well-paced read that has action without being action-packed. This is the kind of novel you want to read again over time, and I look forward to Pfarrer's next work.

Bolivia, 1967: The Death of a Dream

Jean Paul Sarte called Che Guevara the most perfect man of the age. Chuck Pfarrer has written a sprawling, thrilling and fiercely lucid account of Guevara's 1967 murder in Bolivia. The book is the flagship of a new genre--reality fiction--this book is too good to call merely an historical novel. In Killing Che are the makings of an epic; it is part allegory, part romance, part morality tale. A conflicted and war weary CIA officer, Paul Hoyle, is sent to Bolivia to recover two guerilla bodies. He finds himself recruited first on a counter insurgency mission and then an increasingly personal manhunt for Che. It is probably no coincidence that Pfarrer has named his protagonist Paul, for Paul Hoyle, like Paul on the road to Damascus, undergoes a life changing conversion. Literary allusions abound in Pfarrer's work, there is the allegory of Paul, and other gems, references to Malcolm Lowry's Under the Volcano, Graham Greene's Quiet American, Andre Malreaux's Man's Fate, not to mention Carl Jung, Carl Marx and a host of others. The novel scrupulously merges history with a poignant and closely observed human drama. I was bound up by this story from the first page. The characters in it, Paul Hoyle, his love interest Maria Agular, the legendary female Guerilla Tania Vunke, and Che himself are rendered with in a measured finely assured prose. I recommend this one highly.