"Howard Marks, and most of his co-accused, also cooperated, were interviewed at great length, and their point of view is very much reflected." --Paul Eddy (in a personal e-mail, Saturday 22 March 1997).

"In Pakistan a mysterious' Mr. Dennis' abandons four wooden crates of unusual dimensions. In Crystal City, Virginia, police find a dead body, a spy camera and a briefcase filled with cash. In Oakland, California, a man who claims to be an agent for the CIA reveals the details of a terrorist plot. In Palma, Majorca, a tape recorder silently captures the most intimate secrets of a world-wide drug-trafficking organization. So begins Hunting Marco Polo , a story that is too fantastic to be fiction.

"For more than twenty years Howard Marks was one of the world's most audacious drug traffickers, enjoying an apparently charmed life. The Oxford graduate, and sometime agent for MI6, shipped tons of dope into Britain and the United States while bluffing and bribing his way out of trouble at every turn, making fools of British Customs and the Government in the process. His boast seemed to be true. He was simply too clever for 'Mr. Plod'.

"Enter Craig Lovato, a special agent of the US Drug Enforcement Administration. His stubborn creed was 'there isn't a crook who can't be caught' and he set out to prove it, stopping at nothing in his obsession to gather evidence against Marks and his associates. His determination to put Howard Marks behind bars led to an extraordinary cat-and-mouse game played out in fourteen countries around the world.

"Hunting Marco Polo is the inside story of this epic contest between the man too clever to be caught and the agent who wouldn't quit. Written with unparalleled access to both sides, and populated by a cast of exotic supporting characters, it has all the hallmarks of a classic true-crime thriller." [jacket blurb, UK hbk, 1991]