CITY OF DREAMS by Don Winslow

*Book 2 of the City Trilogy*

...because the wounded find the wounded, washed up on the same sad shore.

Picking up immediately after Danny Ryan hightailed it outta Providence after losing his wife and the war with the Italian mob, this second novel in Winslow’s final trilogy finds Danny on the run, and struggling to carve out a safe space for his friends and young son. 

The novel takes on a very different atmosphere than the first, trading New England for the the sunny West Coast, bouncing around San Diego, Las Vegas, and the city of dreams itself, Los Angeles. I love that the book takes a bigger look at and expands on what were minor characters from the first novel as Danny makes this journey with the ragtag crew that he ran from Providence with. It was cool seeing more of Bernie Hughes, Jimmy Mac, Ned Egan, and especially the constantly entertaining Altar Boys: Sean and Kevin. The love story is potent but watching these New England hoods try to navigate the Hollywood world is pure gold!

GRADE: B+

CITY ON FIRE by Don Winslow

*Book 1 of the City Trilogy*

At this point, it’s safe to predict that any novel by Don Winslow will be one I enjoy! 

This is the start of a new epic crime trilogy by the author and I’m here for it. Inspired by Homer’s classic: The Iliad, Winslow spins a tale of a 1980’s gang war between Irish and Italian families in Providence, Rhode Island and the damage it causes. The book focuses on Danny Ryan, surrogate son of the Murphy family, who’s sense of honor and loyalty keeps him fighting for the Murphy’s even if it’s not in his best interest. The book never hides its influence, featuring a modern Helen of Troy, whose body would launch a thousand beat-downs, a Paris that’s just as useless as one would expect, a Hector that must fight the war his brother started, and even an interesting twist on Achilles. 

As usual with books by Winslow, it’s immensely readable, accessible, and engaging, with compelling writing and clear, relatable characters. But it does fall short of being amazing as it feels like it’s missing something. It feels more like an earlier draft than some of his better novels and is nowhere near as powerful, affecting, or as timely as The Power of the Dog or The Force. If a lesser author’s name was on the book, it would be a very good standout, but it comes off as Winslow-lite, as I’ve now come to expect him to always bring his A+ game. But, it is in no way a bad book. I just hold him to a higher standard now. But I still really enjoyed it and it’s worth a read, especially as the start of a new trilogy. 

GRADE: B+

SAVAGES by Don Winslow

It’s interesting reading this early Winslow work having already read his later books, especially the Cartel ones. The tone and writing are so vastly different that it’s striking. If I read his books chronologically, I might have appreciated this more as a new exciting voice and admired his growth and maturity from book to book.  Winslow’s Cartel novels have many obvious similarities in content with this one, but the Cartel series is much more intricately plotted, deeply researched, and thoughtfully executed. 

Savages is less mature and more manic in its pacing. It crackles with an energy and attitude that really fits the material and definitely stands out in the pack of thriller fiction. But I couldn’t get past the large style-over-substance ratio where the writing technique is pretty distracting and it was frustrating how little I cared about the hollow characters or about any of the events and plot turns. The book has style to burn, but ultimately left me a bit cold and distracted. 

GRADE: C

THE BORDER by Don Winslow

*Book 3 of The Cartel Trilogy*

This was one of the most epic reading experiences I've had in a very long time. This is the massive conclusion to Don Winslow's Cartel Trilogy, THE definitive piece of fiction that focuses on the War on Drugs. Throughout these three big books, Winslow leaves no stone unturned in this subject and passionately challenges what you know about the Border Crisis and the American/Mexican Drug War. But even more importantly, he tells the great story of the tumultuous, decades-long personal war between DEA agent Art Keller and Sinaloa Cartel patrón Adan Barrera.

After the big turning point in the finale of the previous book, The Cartel, Art Keller is now the head of the DEA and is trying to fight the Drug War from the very top levels of government.  But at the same time, a new breed of cartel leaders are threatening a new level of violence in Mexico.

With this book, Winslow expands his focus ten-fold, the same way The Wire did with each of it's episodes, and begins to focus on every conceivable corner of the Drug War and all its players: from the cartel leaders, to a NYPD undercover officer, an aging hitman who comes out of hiding, a 10-year-old Guatemalan illegal immigrant, a tormented young Staten Island junkie, and finally a reality-show host and real estate mogul running for president with a love of Twitter and a desire to build a bigger wall along the Mexican border. This large cast of characters shows how far reaching this war is and helps give the story it's epic scope. Winslow also brings back storylines from the previous novels and brings it all to a satisfying end.

There's no other writer quite like Don Winslow. This book shouldn't have worked for me. It's filled with documentary-style focus on detail and sometimes feels like a political essay. But it's so goddammned entertaining that it never bothered me. His writing is so readable that I could've kept reading happily for 500 more pages. I don't want to talk too much about the story but there are so many exciting moments, and even one moment that made me actually shout and clap, and then stop in embarrassment because I shouldn't be cheering at an inanimate object.

The book isn't the most subtle, with it's blatant and inelegant, but spot-on Trump avatar character and a final speech that's basically Winslow's Drug War dissertation, but I had such a great time reading this and was so engaged by the riveting, horrifying, sometimes amusing, and always important story that I can't give it anything but an A-grade. This was fantastic and exhilarating and would recommend it to anyone who's enjoyed the previous books, except maybe sensitive Trump fans.

GRADE: A

THE FORCE by Don Winslow

This is the the type of great book you don't see everyday; that you might go all year without reading. A book where you simultaneous want to see what the hell happens on the next page but also want to slow down your reading because you don't want it to end. A book that on one hand is crazily entertaining but also makes you hit Google and read articles to learn more about its timely issues.

Hell isn't having no choice. It's having to make a choice between horrific things.

At the risk of this sounding like hyperbole, Don Winslow takes a crooked cop story that's a combination of The Shield and The Wire (yes, it's just as amazing as that sounds), and crafts: 

1) One of the best books I've read this year

2) What might have to be considered the Best Cop Novel, perhaps ever.

3) The best Richard Price novel Richard Price never wrote.

This is the third book by Don Winslow that I've given an A grade to. The guy really does have a talent for slinging stories that are both heavily engaging with a lasting effect and also very researched and informative. A great storyteller that should have the same success as the most popular authors. One of the things that really impressed me was how awesome Winslow's attention to detail is and how EVERY SINGLE THING matters by the end. Everything character, every idea, even every setting connects in important ways and it always excites me to see an author so dedicated to making that happen. 

You tell yourself what you gotta tell yourself to do what you gotta do. And sometimes you even fuckin' believe it.

The story of Manhattan Task Force Detective Denny Malone is the epic tragedy of a crooked city cop at the top of his game slowly losing his grip on his kingdom. Throughout the novel, it's mesmerizing to witness him struggle to keep control and to get his head out from under the slowly rising waters of corruption, lies, dirty deeds and violence created by both he and the system he's a part of. 

All cats are gray in the dark.

Trust me, this will be seen as one of THE books of the year.

GRADE: A

THE CARTEL by Don Winslow

The Cartel picks up years after the final events in Winslow's drug war chronicle The Power of the Dog. And if you thought Dog was epic, wait till you get a load of this one. In a culmination of their 30-year feud, cartel lord Adán Barrera and DEA legend Art Keller have both lost everything and are stuck in their own prisons. Adán is living large behind the bars of a Mexican prison that he turns into his personal headquarters, and Art is living in seclusion at a border monastery. But when Adán strolls out of prison set on making himself El Patrón again, Art knows that he's the only one capable of bringing him down. But while both men are set on destroying one another, neither of them is prepared to face the cruel and sadistic ways that the drug war has evolved.

When the devil comes, he comes on angel's wings.

This sequel is basically the Godfather Part II or Empire Strikes Back of Winslow's Cartel trilogy. It's bigger, badder, darker, and more violent. I loved picking up again with these two main characters and found it fascinating to see them struggle with this ferociously brutal evolution of the drug war and the fact that they both had a hand in creating it. But the stand-out in this book is the vast supporting cast of scene-stealing characters, such as my favorite, the rational and pragmatic rising drug lord "Crazy" Eddie Ruiz, the tragic child killer Chuy (who's introductory chapter is one of the book's best), or the Juárez reporter Pablo Mora. Each of the rich supporting characters gives us a lens from which to view a particular aspect of this complicated war that affects so many parts of Mexican life and really provides the heart of the story. But the story's backbone is the Keller/Barrera feud, and here, as they each separately try to get a handle on the worsening violence, they still circle one another as their mutual hatred grows, and you get the sense that it can only possibly end with one of them dead.

At the end of the day or the end of the world, there are no separate souls. We will go to heaven or we will go to hell, but we will go together. 

The graphic violence is ratcheted up here, especially with Winslow's inclusion of the rise of the real-life Los Zetas organization, responsible for much of the brutal terror in the past decade in Mexico. It's a bit hard to read at times, and unbelievable, but some quick internet research or at least a passing interest in Mexican news will let you know the harsh truth that Winslow's depictions are not only plausible but actually based on real events. Just google Los Zetas, El Chapo, and recently, Javier Valdez. The timeliness and the authenticity makes the whole thing pretty gripping, and the action culminates in a masterful, climactic, jungle set-piece that kept my eyes glued to the page for the last 50 pages of the book.

If you like sweeping crime epics, these books are must-reads! And the best news of all is that Winslow is finishing the work on the last Cartel book, and I'm definitely pumped to read it!

They say that love conquers all. They're wrong, Keller thinks. Hate conquers all. It even conquers hate.

GRADE: A-

THE POWER OF THE DOG by Don Winslow

I've owned this book for years but kept putting it off until now. I got about 50 pages in and knew that I should have gotten around to this earlier and was peeved at myself for wasting time this year on more disappointing reads. This is the type of book that doesn't come around too often. A book that finds the perfect balance between it's attention to detail and research, it's sensitivity to character, and it's great structure, all wrapped up in passionate prose.

Imagine a mix of Traffic, Sicario, and Narcos, with elements of The Godfather and then multiply it by 3, then you'll get a sense of what to expect from The Power of the Dog, which details an epic battle during America's unwinnable War on Drugs, a 30-year battle between DEA agent Art Keller and Mexican cartel lord Adán Barrera, who were once good buddies. We witness the rise of both men within their respective ranks, and as the feud strengthens, they struggle to stay one step ahead of the other, dragging others into the trenches with them, into a war that neither side can truly win.

This was one of the longest books I read this year, but it felt like I sped through reading it. It was endlessly engaging and one of the most compulsively readable books for me this year. Every character was fascinating and I found myself rooting for all of them, especially Art Keller and his unwavering drive to bring down the Barreras, and Sean Callan, a young New Yorker whose fateful actions to protect his buddy leads him into a life of violence where he faces a constant struggle to keep his morals. And it's all very tragic, because all of this violence and death is part of a silly "War" on Drugs where the priorities and the objectives have been skewed big time, a war that should've ended a long time ago.

You know those addictive tv shows that you can't help but binge-watch on Netflix, Prime, or HBONow all weekend? Well, here's one in book form. And guess what? There's a sequel.

GRADE: A