Craving a little end-of-week literary excitement? Malvernite Adam has an adventurous reading recommendation for you…

The novel Queen Cocaine by Spanish journalist Nuria Amat tells the story of Wilson Cervantes, a Marxist journalist in Colombia, and his girlfriend Rat, a young writer originally from Barcelona. The pair are forced to go on the lam after Wilson writes unfavorable articles about the Colombian government. They endure countless hardships while hiding out in a remote seaside cabin during the country’s brutal drug war. Whether it’s the paramilitary police burning down the nearby coca fields, the ruthless drug dealers fighting over territory, or the state’s Guerrilla army performing random executions, the plot never loses momentum in this exciting novel. There is not a dull moment for the protagonists, with the story shifting from moments of intimacy to sheer horror in a matter of minutes. A definite must-read for fans of adventure novels.