[2][3] Vallejo's memoir, in addition to covering the relationship, also serves as an intimate biography of Escobar, and a historical document about Colombian tragedies and political corruption in the second half of the 20th century.

[7] Like a snowball, Vallejo describes the birth and boom of the cocaine industry that turned her lover into a billionaire, thanks to the cooperation of leading politicians; the origins of the Colombian rebel organizations, and the paramilitary squads founded by Escobar and his partners; the assassinations of the justice minister Rodrigo Lara in 1984, and the siege of the Palace of Justice in 1985; the suffering of the journalist after she had ended her relationship with the drug kingpin in 1987, and her cooperation with the anti drug German agency BKA in 1988; the Cuban connection, and the bombing of an airplane with 110 people on board in 1989 (Avianca Flight 203); the assassination of Luis Carlos Galán, and three more presidential candidates; the origins of Escobar's war against the Cali Cartel and the Colombian state, followed by the era of narcoterrorism from 1988 to 1993; the coalition of enforcement agencies and Escobar's enemies involved in his hunt; and, finally, the worldwide reaction to the death of the Number One Enemy of the United States on 2 December 1993.

[8] The release of the book created a political scandal in Latin America and the Hispanic television channels in the US, due to Vallejo's description of the relationship of Pablo Escobar and the Medellín and Cali Cartels with several presidents – like Álvaro Uribe, Alfonso López and Ernesto Samper – and Colombian enforcement agencies.

[18][19] On 3 June 2010, the United States of America granted political asylum to the Colombian author under the precepts of the American Constitution, the Geneva Convention Against Torture, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

[20] The decision of the judge was based on Virginia Vallejo's career of decades as a journalist; her testimonies under oath in historic criminal cases that resulted in lengthy convictions; her description of atrocities and massacres in her book and in the court; the threats that she had received from members of the Colombian Government and the paramilitary; and the brutal character assassination of the journalist in media owned by presidential families or their powerful associates, all of them documented in hundreds of pages of evidence and later erased from the Internet.