Hunting El Chapo

The Inside Story of the American Lawman Who Captured the World's Most-Wanted Drug Lord

By: Andrew Hogan, Douglas Century

Narrated by: Robert Fass, Andrew Hogan

Length: 8 hrs and 25 mins

Publisher's summary

A blend of Manhunt, Killing Pablo, and Zero Dark Thirty, Andrew Hogan and Douglas Century's sensational investigative high-tech thriller - soon to be a major motion picture from Sony - chronicles a riveting chapter in the 20th-century drug wars: the exclusive inside story of the American lawman and his dangerous eight-year hunt that captured El Chapo - the world's most wanted drug kingpin who evaded the law for more than a decade. 

Every generation has a larger-than-life criminal: Jesse James, Billy the Kid, John Dillinger, Al Capone, John Gotti, Pablo Escobar. But each of these notorious lawbreakers had a "white hat" in pursuit: Wyatt Earp, Pat Garrett, Eliot Ness, Steve Murphy. For notorious drug lord Joaquín Archivaldo Guzmán-Loera - El Chapo - that lawman is former Drug Enforcement Administration Special Agent Andrew Hogan. 

In 2006, fresh out of the DEA Academy, Hogan heads west to Arizona, where he immediately plunges into a series of gripping undercover adventures, all unknowingly placing him on the trail of Guzmán, the leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, a Forbes billionaire, and public enemy number one in the United States. Six years later, as head of the DEA's Sinaloa Cartel desk in Mexico City, Hogan finds his life and Chapo's are, ironically, on parallel paths: They're both obsessed with the details. 

In a recasting of the classic American Western on the global stage, Hunting El Chapo takes us on Hogan's quest to achieve the seemingly impossible, from infiltrating El Chapo's inner circle to leading a white-knuckle manhunt with an elite brigade of trusted Mexican marines - racing door to door through the cartel's stronghold and ultimately bringing the elusive and murderous kingpin to justice. 

This cinematic crime story following the relentless investigative work of Hogan and his team unfolds at breakneck speed, taking the listener behind the scenes of one of the most sophisticated and dangerous counternarcotics operations in the history of the United States and Mexico. 

©2017 QQQ, LLC (P)2017 HarperCollins Publishers

honest, but poorly written

I understand that this book was a story of how a dea agent caught Chapo. This isn't a Chapo biography. I thought that I would get a better understanding of Chapo after listening to the book, but I didn't. Throughout the book he continues to state all the info he gets on Chapo, which are from wire taps. If he has all this info on Chapo,....tell us about Chapo...if he went into more detail about Chapos day to day life, I think the book would have been better.. how many calls does he make a day..? how much money does he make a day..?how does he engineer his empire..? what countries does he operate in..? does he drink..? does he use drugs..? which drugs, if so..? does he have parties everyday..? I understand that a dea agent wrote this book, I wasn't expecting Shakespeare, but I don't know much more about Chapo, than before I heard the book..

What’s up Chapo!!!!!

Bravo bravo!!! Thrilling and chilling! Bad ass DEA agent Drew Hogan masterminds the pursuit and capture of “the shorty.” The action is fast paced, and the narrator nails it. I’ve already bought this book for my brother. It makes me proud to be an American knowing that law men like this put it all on the line for our safety and our kids safety!!! Stop reading and start listening you won’t regret it.

Action-Packed & a Stellar Performance

This audiobook takes you into the hunt! You will feel like you are overseas in full armor, ready to take down one of the world’s most notorious dirtbags!

Loved everything about it

Narration was great and the story.... wow! I couldn't stop listening. I didn't know much about this drug cartel leader until listening to this book so I didn't know how it ended. Does he live or not? Escape or not? It wasn't until the very end that my memory was jogged with some of the news headlines I had briefly read last year. Needless to say, reading this was like reading a suspense novel. I was practically on the edge of my seat. Great story and great work by all involved.

Sometimes he was allowed to carry a gun.

This story is not what I expected. It describes a US DEA agent's attempts to pinpoint the location of El Chapo within Mexico by following cell phone/ Blackberry signals ( think, "Find my Friends"). This job proved difficult because El Chapo had subordinates relaying him information and cell phones were changed frequently. Nonetheless, the grand search amounted mostly to office work, "pinging" or trying locate the position of these mobile devices. When they believed they knew El Chapo's location and it was time to break down doors, our protagonist was definitely not the first guy in. The front line, dangerous stuff was carried out by Mexican Marines, a US Marshall, and others. It seems that our main character hung well back in armored vehicles, sometimes in possession of a pistol that someone found for him to carry. Then, after the buildings were cleared, he would come in and have a look around. When our main character heard over the radio that El Chapo had been captured by others, he almost was the guy to drive the prisoner back to headquarters. But then it was decided that work was too dangerous, so someone else did it.

The main writer does a nice job trying to build a sense of pressure and suspense. The book seems pretty exciting at first. There are descriptions of being in bars full of "narco junior" drug dealers and even an undercover meeting with the bad guys (again, our protagonist isn't the guy uncover, but he was nearby). However, by the end of the book, you realize all the talk about armored vehicles, suspicious people sitting in cars outside, etc, just isn't going anywhere. Near the end of the book, it really starts to sound funny; he is walking down the hallway of his own office building, sleep-deprived, disoriented, in a daze. Then a few days later, he was better. What?

Nice job following phone signals. It was important work and led to good results. But let's hear the heart pounding tales from the guys who actually knocked the doors down.

El Chapito

The details of Mexico and the Narco lifestyle was so accurate. Good book. Interesting and entertaining.

Nice story, great narration

Interesting story and worth a listen. Could get a bit dry at time s but overall a nice story that kept me listening. Narrator was great.

you have balls of steel mr. Hogan

I'll have a drink on your name mr. Andrew Hogan from a Mexican to an American with love; this book is very very entertaining from the beginning until the end I believe all the corruption that exist and you mention it with details and it's embarrassing for mexico, amazing book and a great story

An ego's tale

Extremely self center history. I truly doubt it he was able to do so much without much help. It's a white male tale book. Pretty boring and repetitive.

Narrator

The story is great with detail. It would have been much better if Hogan narrated the entire book.