4 out of 4 stars
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Review by vphilip
Gringo: My Life on the Edge as an International Fugitive by Dan "Tito" Davis with Peter Conti is the true story of the protagonist of the same name. Peter Conti, who rewrote Tito’s story by narrating it in the first person makes the story even more compelling and spellbinding as the reader is bound to follow the character on his every move throughout the book. The book gives a wide-angled glimpse into what a fugitive from the law can go through.
Dan Davis was born on July 10, 1953, in Pierre, South Dakota of very conservative parents who grew up in the days of the Great Depression. Dan’s and his siblings’ childhood was not as hard as his parents’, though they could not spare beyond what was essential for their children.
All this made Davis want to earn enough so as never to be short of money. He was a bright kid with an astute head for business. At ten years of age, he got the first real job that fetched him $1.20 an hour. At sixteen he became a jockey, earning $5.00 a race. In fact, in the first summer races he earned $ 10,000 - more than his father earned in a year.
In his college years Davis got into a rather unrespectable business: selling White Crosses, the drug Ephedrine that behaves like Methamphetamine. Ephedrine was legal, which suited Davis, who didn’t want to break any laws. He quickly became the main supplier to clients such as university students, truck drivers and bikers.
By the age of twenty-four, he also earned a commercial pilot’s license and started a flying school with a fleet of airplanes. His combined businesses grossed about $2, 00,000 a week in those days.
He met and later married his first wife, Lisa Lien who belonged to a powerful political family. Things were doing well until he got arrested for selling cocaine. However, due to his in-laws’ political influence, he got only 102 months of a prison sentence. But in February 1990, two months before his release, his wife left him for another man.
Once out of prison Davis was penniless. His wife had taken everything. It was only his own mother who came to his rescue. He also met his second wife, Julie.
Soon after Davis got into the marijuana business and put the money he made not in American Banks as earlier but in Mexico City. Business was good until one when his luck finally ran out. His grade school chum Marvin Schumacher, whose life he saved earlier and trusted, ratted out on him. , swearing that the two pounds meth found on his car was Davis’. Though innocent, the fact that his name came up was enough for the DEA to pounce on him.
He got bail but Davis did not have a dog’s chance. If convicted he would get at least thirty years in the lam for a crime he never committed. Even his lawyer wondered aloud why he still remained in the country. Davis decided to vanish without trace, telling no one, to start a new, clean life.
Davis had made many friends in prison earlier who helped him a lot. Being American with plenty of money also helped. He went to Mexico and then on to Guatemala, and finally Colombia. Those were the early 1990s, just after the infinitely notorious and ruthless drug lord, Pablo Escobar, was apparently eliminated. He was fiercely protected by Julio, drug lord of Campo Valdez, one of the most dangerous places in all of Colombia in the 1990s. Julio put Davis up to stay with Dona Ruth, a lady he loved as his mother, while was arranging a passport for him.
The fake passport and new (also fake) identity finally gave Davis the freedom to move on to Venezuela. He became a ‘real estate developer’ who lived off his trusts. He partnered with an Australian named Nick to start a strip club. It did extremely well but halfway through it, Davis thought it better leave for his own safety. That was when he met an extremely attractive woman, Mary Luz, who changed his name to Tito and later became his third wife.
Life wasn’t easy for an international fugitive. Davis travelled to many countries but everywhere he went he faced what a fugitive must face: uncertainties and real dangers of being exposed or kidnapped or even killed. But there were exciting moments like his wedding ceremony with Mary Luz in Bali, Indonesia. Or nightmarish moments of their honeymoon in India.
Davis started the El Yaque Club that specializes in wind and kite surfing. By the beginning of 2007 it was doing extremely well but towards November 2007 luck began to run out on him. His best friend Paul Holt’s divorced wife spilt the beans to the US authorities telling them everything about Holt and Davis. After ten years of life on the run, he was finally kidnapped by Venezuelan paramilitary forces and turned over to US Homeland Security to face his original drug charges. He never saw Mary Luz again.
What I liked most about this book is the brilliant and crisp narration that leaves you walking on a tightrope with the protagonist himself. It tells about the futility of being on the run, but the banter is light and raises many chuckles every time. You also get to learn some South American Politics, Geography, Sociology and Spanish! The book is also brilliantly edited. I could not detect any serious typos or grammatical errors. That is why it deserves four out of four stars.
But I have this creeping feeling that Davis must have exaggerated in some parts while being absolutely silent in others, especially about his family. Was he trying to hide something? Storytellers often do that. That is what I disliked most about the book.
All said and done, I thoroughly enjoyed Gringo: My Life on the Edge as an International Fugitive. It is one of those books that appeal to those who love real life, adrenaline-pumping high adventure, never quite knowing what lies ahead. This book promises all that and more.
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Gringo
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