The iconic image of his photogenic beret-topped face adorned dormitory walls all over the world in the 1960s. He was young and handsome enough to make coeds go all weak-kneed. He was charming and a revolutionary’s revolutionary.
Known as Che, Ernesto Guevara captured the attention of a generation of college kids and in some ways spoke for many of them. He was known primarily as Fidel Castro’s right-hand man as the two of them and a ragtag army ousted the Batista regime and turned Cuba into a communist enclave smack dab in the Caribbean, about 90 miles from U.S. shores.
Always looking for more causes, Guevara grew bored in Cuba after the revolution. Given a bureaucratic position by Castro, Guevara soon found that desk work wasn’t for him, so he went to the Congo to see if he could stir things up there.
When the Congo mission failed, the son of a well-to-do Argentine couple decided to return to South America to see if he could stir
the revolutionary fires there. He chose Bolivia – unfortunately for him. Much like he did in Cuba, Guevara took to the mountains with a small group of fighters and attempted to mount an insurgency against the entrenched government.
It is here, near the small mountain village of La Higuera, that Bolivian army troops ran Guevara and company to ground. Guevara was wounded, captured then summarily executed on the spot by the army. There always has been some question about just how much the American CIA was involved.
This is where Chuck Pfarrer sets his debut novel, “Killing Che,” a spirited romp of a novel full of conniving spies, corrupt government officials, femme fatales and, of course, Che and his small but fervent band of brothers.
Pfarrer makes a plausible case for CIA involvement in Guevara’s death and throws in some plotlines bringing the Russians and Castro into the plan to kill Guevara as well.
Paul Hoyle is a contract soldier with the CIA and, along with a few others, is being paid to find Guevara and his men and do away with them. Working behind the scenes, Hoyle tracks the guerrilla band through the mountains of Bolivia, eventually surrounding them then backing away to let the Bolivian army do the heavy lifting.
But it is a novel, after all, and Pfarrer throws in a love interest for Hoyle and a beautiful Russian spy who is madly in love with Guevara (based on a real person known as Tanya), even though her job is also to lead him to his demise.
The part of the book in which we spend time with Guevara as he leads his men through the mountains and to their ultimate deaths shows off Pfarrer’s familiarity with what it takes to survive militarily in a hostile environment. It is also a time when we get to learn a little more about the charismatic – and asthmatic – Che.
As a former Navy SEAL, Pfarrer seems more comfortable with his story when it is in the jungle with Guevara rather than in the sack with a beautiful woman.
No matter what your take on Che – stone killer or romantic revolutionary – “Killing Che” is an informed and thrilling behind-the-scenes look at an incident that captured the world’s attention all those years ago and, to this day, continues to draw historians.
Books editor Tom Walker can be reached at 303-954-1624 or twalker@denverpost.com.
FICTION
Killing Che
Chuck Pfarrer
$26.95
