Why read The Year of Dangerous Days?

Book cover of The Year of Dangerous Days: Riots, Refugees, and Cocaine in Miami 1980

Book description

In the tradition of The Wire, the "utterly absorbing" (The New York Times) story of the cinematic transformation of Miami, one of America's bustling cities-rife with a drug epidemic, a burgeoning refugee crisis, and police brutality-from journalist and award-winning author Nicholas Griffin.

Miami, Florida, famed for its blue skies and…

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American history

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Year of Dangerous Days as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Gary Krist

Author

The Year of Dangerous Days is another of those city books that braid together several storylines into a single vibrant portrait. This time the city is Miami, and the year of crisis is 1980, when the Florida metropolis faced a toxic combination of racial unrest, cocaine-fueled gang violence, and an uncontrollable refugee crisis.

Nicholas Griffin anchors his narrative on a few central characters – a police captain, a prominent journalist, a drug lord, and the city's dynamic mayor – creating a cinematic account of a city that somehow managed to emerge from its annus horribilis scarred and chastened, but primed…

From Gary's list on The best narrative nonfiction books involving murder and mayhem.