Description:
There's no shortage of books on the 1989 U.S. invasion of Panama, which resulted in the capture of Manuel Antonio Noriega. Yet Shooting the Moon may be the most entertaining, as author David Harris blends the genres of legal thriller and true crime to produce a lively account of how and why the federal government decided to haul in the Panamanian strongman. It's an extraordinary story: "Just once in its 225 years of formal national existence has the United States ever invaded another country and carried its ruler back to the United States to face trial and imprisonment for violations of American law committed on that ruler's own native foreign turf." In large part, Shooting the Moon is the tale of the creative investigators and lawyers who made the case against Noriega. There's plenty of politics, too, with parts played by the first President Bush, Oliver North, and Eliot Abrams. Readers will also learn much about the world of drug smuggling in the 1980s, from the bureaucratic workings of the federal Drug Enforcement Agency to the operations of Colombia's cocaine-peddling Medellin cartel. The book screeches to a halt just as the invasion gets underway--the military effort and Noriega's actual arrest are described in cursory fashion, taking up just a few pages at the end. Harris primarily focuses on the legal and political aspects of the case as they developed in Miami (where the case against Noriega was built) and Washington (where the powers that be called the shots). Readers may need a few pages to get used to Harris's gonzo style--the first sentence of the book runs a whole paragraph, and his prose sometimes seems more suited for the spoken word than the written one--but it's worth the effort. Harris is an evocative writer; he describes Noriega's famous countenance as "a face that looks like somebody lit it on fire and then extinguished the blaze with an ice pick." For readers who crave narrative detail, this is a good yarn. --John J. Miller
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