'After dinner a small mountain of coke was emptied onto a glass surface, the music was turned up and the party continued. This is what Colombians did. And everyone danced, including the men.' When a free-spirited young woman from Sydney's northern beaches left Australia to dance her way around the world, little did she know she would be catapulted into the middle of a European cocaine ring on her first day in Paris. A dancer with the Moulin Rouge, Robyn Windshuttle's life changed irrevocably the moment she met Daniel, a handsome and charismatic Colombian. Drawn together by an irresistible chemistry, Robyn takes Daniel at his word. But he is not, as first thought, a photographer for the Nikon Gallery and she becomes an unwitting accomplice to the cutthroat dealings of Daniel's Colombian drug syndicate. Honest, evocative and full of spirit, Dancing with a Cocaine Cowboy moves from Sydney to Paris, Ibiza, Monte Carlo and Bogota in a rich, exciting and exotic swirl. And with great strength and resilience, Robyn eventually reclaims her own life and that of the son she had with Daniel from this turbulent world.

The true story of super-criminal Jon Roberts, star of the documentary Cocaine Cowboys. American Desperado is Roberts’ no-holds-barred account of being born into Mafia royalty, witnessing his first murder at the age of seven, becoming a hunter-assassin in Vietnam, returning to New York to become--at age 22--one of the city’s leading nightclub impresarios, then journeying to Miami where in a few short years he would rise to become the Medellin Cartel’s most effective smuggler. But that’s just half the tale. The roster of Roberts’ friends and acquaintances reads like a Who’s Who of the latter half of the 20th century and includes everyone from Jimi Hendrix, Richard Pryor, and O.J. Simpson to Carlo Gambino, Meyer Lansky, and Manuel Noriega. Nothing if not colorful, Roberts surrounded himself with beautiful women, drove his souped-up street car at a top speed of 180 miles per hour, shared his bed with a 200-pound cougar, and employed a 6”6” professional wrestler called “The Thing” as his bodyguard. Ultimately, Roberts became so powerful that he attracted the attention of the Republican Party’s leadership, was wooed by them, and even was co-opted by the CIA for which he carried out its secret agenda. Scrupulously documented and relentlessly propulsive, this collaboration between a bloodhound journalist and one of the most audacious criminals ever is like no other crime book you’ve ever read.

'The best crime book since Wiseguy? - Rich CohenA real-life Scarface, Jon was born into the Gambino Mafia family and witnessed his first murder aged seven. He joined a US Army assassination squad in Vietnam to escape a teen criminal charge, then fled New York to reinvent himself in Miami as the number one supplier of cocaine in the US. With a crazed bodyguard always at his side, and a fortress protected by mortars, tear-gas cannons, and a gold-fanged attack dog, Roberts was brutally effective at what he did. With a cast that includes everyone from Jimi Hendrix and OJ Simpson to the CIA and General Noriega, American Desperado is a hedonistic, adrenaline-soaked joyride through the world of Escobar and the cartels, told by one of most successful criminals of all time.

In the seventies, coke hit Miami with the full force of a hurricane, and no place attracted dealers and dopers like Coconut Grove's Mutiny at Sailboat Bay. It was a hotel and club that embodied the decadence of Miami's cocaine cowboys heyday-- and an inspiration for the film, Scarface. Three waves of Cuban immigrants vied to dominate the trafficking, but as the kilos-- and bodies-- began to pile up, the Mutiny became target number one for law enforcement. Farzad examines a city high on excess and greed, and offers an unprecedented view of the rise and fall of cocaine-- and the Mutiny-- in Miami.

A lavishly illustrated companion to the acclaimed documentary of the same name and the definitive document of Miami's cocaine wars during the flamboyant and ultimately tragic 1970s and 1980s. The Cocaine Cowboys films are comprised of numerous dramatic storylines which tell the unflinching truth of how Miami became the cocaine capital of the US. By the early 1980s, Miami's homicide rate had tripled and the city was dubbed Paradise Lost.