Abstract

Tragic Realism

The article focuses on "The Palace of Justice: A Colombian Tragedy," by Ana Carrigan and "Death Beat: A Colombian Journalist's Life Inside the Cocaine Wars," by María Jimena Duzán. The book recounts the takeover by M-19 rebels of the Palace of Justice, which housed the Supreme Court, in Bogota in November 1985 and the ensuing battle with the armed forces that left the building consumed by fire and one hundred dead, including eleven high court justices. Unlike Carrigan, Duzán regards the drug traffickers, not the armed forces or their civilian accomplices, as the principal threat to Colombian society. "Death Beat: A Colombian Journalist's Life Inside the Cocaine Wars," is a harrowing account of efforts during the 1980s by a small group of courageous reporters and editors to uncover the extraordinary influence of the Cali drug cartels in the nation's economic and political affairs, at dreadful personal cost.