Elite Squad

"Three brave members of Brazil's Special Police Operations Battalion (BOPE) are faced every day with a single duty: to derail the drug traffic inside Rio de Janiero's numerous favelas (shantytowns). But a life in the this select cadre of highly trained military police is one forever at risk. Death is simply an every-day obstacle, enemies may just be those colleagues kept closest, and breaking the law is something often done to uphold it. Written by anthropologist and former Brazilian National Secretary of Public Security Luiz Eduardo Soares and two BOPE police cadets, Andre Batista and Rodrigo Pimentel, this brutally intense semi-fictional account of the authors' experiences in BOPE examines with painstaking candor the best and worst of human nature and enlightens readers on the universal weakness of government's inability to control a thriving underground industry."--BOOK JACKET.