Review by norcrossmeganc -- Gringo

norcrossmeganc · Post by **norcrossmeganc** » 15 Mar 2019, 14:22

[Following is a volunteer review of "Gringo" by Dan "Tito" Davis.]

3 out of 4 stars

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Gringo: My Life on the Edge As An International Fugitive by Dan “Tito” Davis with Peter Conti promised much, but fell short in a few key areas, giving this book a ranking of three out of four stars. The book was edited very well, with few grammatical errors.

Gringo follows author “Tito” Davis through his life, focusing particularly on his entrance into the drug trade while in college and culminating in his extradition to the United States after over fifteen years on the run in Latin America.

He clearly lived a life full of adventure while on the run, living in numerous countries and meeting many interesting people. He fell in love, even getting married, and was able to establish multiple successful businesses.

There were two main things that I had a hard time wrapping my head around. First, Davis was a fairly unsympathetic protagonist. While I admired how he turned his life around, especially getting away from the drugs at a time of intense pressure in his life when they were readily available, he had an almost righteous indignation that he was in trouble at all. This was after admitting freely that he was a major-level drug dealer. He may not have been guilty of the crime that the feds were coming after him for before he fled, but he had lived a blatantly illegal, free-wheeling lifestyle. He demonstrated no moral struggle with the lives he was affecting, or those whose addictions or habits he was feeding, only that this was a huge inconvenience for him. As a reader, I was less than impressed with his complaining about having to go on the run and all of the subsequent struggles that he had. Contrary to his assertion that he worked hard, selling drugs and participating in illegal activity is often the easier choice than living a legal life like most normal citizens.

The second issue I had was the abrupt and unsatisfactory end to the book. There was no introspection, information on his prison sentence or closure at all. I was left with one overriding question that was never answered: was it all worth it?

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Gringo
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