ecommended this book to a friend, based on my fond memories of it. He said he sounded interested. That made me interested. I hadn’t read it for 40 years (since it came out). Did I even still have my old copy? After all, there was the cull I’d done when I had to move everything out to a pod and back in the blazing sun (termite treatment in the house).

Happily, I found it. And since I wasn’t reading anything, I put it on the top of my list.

So Cosmic Banditos is a book that explores the drug trade, South American violence and quantum mechanics. If you think this would make for a strange storyline, yes, it did. So in it, we follow the atomic course of the hapless narrator, hiding out in the wilds of Columbia with the entire array of drug enforcement agencies seeking him. He’s been involved with some major (and inept) criminal efforts in the past (one storyline) and a quest to find and with a college professor (who, along with his family, was mugged in the Columbia airport by Jose (his Bandito Buddy) and his gang). Amongst the stolen items were several books on physics, and since our hero is stuck in the wilds with nobody to talk to save his dog (High Pockets) and his snake (Legs), he begins to explore the books, learning quantum mechanics, which he proselytizes to Jose (who is riding his mule Pepe to the hideout to keep him supplied with food and news). Eventually Jose gets it, and the two begin their ill-considered journey to Sausalito, California, to confront the physicist (the other storyline).

I had to say, I thought the book was funny then, and it’s funny now. Think of it as a version of Miami Vice that laughed at its silliness. After years and years of our “War on Drugs”, what else is there but laughing at it. Since it’s going on, decade after decade, Americans snorting and sending cash south to drug lords. You can only laugh, else you’d cry.

But yes, funny in ways it should be, and thoughtful in ways that surprised me, Cosmic Banditos was just as good as I remembered it. And Sean, you need to get a copy and read it.

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