Marching Powder: A True Story of Friendship, Cocaine, and South America's Strangest Jail

by Rusty Young

Book Overview

Rusty Young was backpacking in South America when he heard about Thomas McFadden, a convicted English drug trafficker who ran tours inside Bolivia's notorious San Pedro prison. Intrigued, the young Australian journalisted went to La Paz and joined one of Thomas's illegal tours. They formed an instant friendship and then became partners in an attempt to record Thomas's experiences in the jail. Rusty bribed the guards to allow him to stay and for...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312330340
• ISBN13: 9780312330347
• Release Date: May 2004
• Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
• Length: 371 Pages
• Weight: 0.83 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.6" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

Very good read

I read this book about 3 years ago. I never read a book with so much interest as this. It was very interesting, entertaining, frightening and attention grabbing. I am not sure if the story is 100% true but it certainly made a good read. I am planning to read the book again sometime soon.

Very entertaining and facinating read

What a great story - Once you begin reading it, you won't put it down until it's finished! Well written and very interesting all the way through, the book shares stories that you will find most surprising and almost unbelievable. I can't compare the substance of the story to anything else I have read - it is a mix of eye-opening surprise, awe, adventure, humour and sadness. When we travel, it's always facinating to see how other people live, and this book provides the reader with an amazing glimpse of life in a unique situation. Highly recommended.

Quite a remarkable book

Thomas McFadden is a drug trafficker. Oh don't worry, he freely admits to it in this book and he was actually caught trying to smuggle drugs out of South America when he was double crossed by a customs official. What I found in this book was a surprisingly funny, yet also dark account of life in Bolivia's San Pedro prison. Basically if you don't have any money to bribe the guards you don't even get food to eat let alone a cell to call your own. That's right, you have to pay for your own cell like it was real estate! The book is written by Rusty Young, an Australian backpacking in South America who had heard of a guy in San Pedro who was giving tours and overnight stays in the prison, for a price. Three months later Rusty emerged with Thomas' story of mob justice, violence, bribery, drugs, women, love and even a night out on the town. Thomas never really apologises for anything he has done, and if anything he gives us quite an insight into the global drug trafficking business. But most of the book focuses on Thomas' time in San Pedro and his often fight to stay alive. I'm not normally a non-fiction fan, but I have to admit this book was VERY interesting!

Truth is stranger than fiction

In 1995, Thomas McFadden was arrested at El Alto airport in La Paz in Bolivia for drug smuggling in a sting operation set up by a local policeman. Thomas was then sent to the local San Pedro prison after almost being starved to death by the local police because he didn't have any cash on him to pay for food in their holding pens. San Pedro prison turned out to be the strangest place Thomas had ever been in his life. It was a microcosm of the entire Bolivian economy. People ran shops, made and traded drugs, bribed all the police and guards on a daily basis and had their wives and children live with them in jail. Thomas is honest and straightforward in stating that before his arrest he was a professional drug smuggler and after his introduction to prison a regular cocaine taker as well. He's not an angel, but this is a fascinating story of good times and bad times and the friends and enemies of life in the strangest prison you'll ever read about. The moral of this story is - if you have to go to prison in South America make sure its San Pedro and that you are rich and any of other nationality aside from USA. "Gringos" can survive these prisons but they can also be brutal to people that they hate and this book shows you both the light and dark sides of San Pedro prison and a place that was at one point one of South America's strangest tourist attractions.

POWERFUL and incredible story, you MUST read this!!

Marching Powder was one of those rare finds for me... I had never heard of it before, but it turned out to be one of the best books I've ever read. It recounts the story of Thomas McFadden, a convicted drug trafficker, and all his struggles and reversals of fortune inside the worlds craziest prison. This true story is often intense and intriguing and has most of the elements of a prison tale including the hardship and suffering that goes on, but not in the conventional sense... and you'll find out why if you read it! Thomas recounts the bonds formed with his friends and enemies along the way, and comes to understand the true meaning of friendship, freedom, and redemption.