A former CIA operative ('Company Cowboy'), Keller is half Mexican, having grown up in San Diego, California's Barrio Logan. Several main players demand mention, beginning with Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) special agent Art Keller, a tortured soul, who introduces and closes Winslow's tale. This tale is elevated as well by Winslow's cast of evocative characters. The book's greatness doesn't derive solely from its astute dissection of governmental deception. We all know the resources fuelling the drug war could have been used for something more essential like supporting topĭrug addiction treatment programs in California and anywhere else in the country, but I digress. policy regarding the so-called War on Drugs (which is really tantamount to a non-war on drugs). It will leave you stunned, but also sickened by the dark side of American democracy.ĭog is relentless in the pounding it delivers to U.S.

The Power of the Dog is the best crime novel about the Western Hemisphere's drug trade I have read in many years. Considering the success of Winslow's previous, brilliant and Shamus Award-winning novel, California Fire and Life (1999), I was concerned that this follow-up would fall short. Bush's bloody invasion of Iraq, then reading Don Winslow's newest tour de force, The Power of the Dog, is likely to put the torch to whatever particle of faith you still possess.Ī 560-page saga that begins in the late 1970s and concludes in May 2004, Dog is a harrowing account of the 'Mexican Trampoline' - aka the trafficking of cocaine 'from Medellin to Honduras to Mexico to the States.' Dog's story, made all the more complex and riveting by collusion between the Mafia, Mexican drug lords and an American government that turns a blind eye to the rampant coke shipments ('See no evil, hear no evil, and for God's sake speak no evil'), conceals the depth of its intent and information by moving briskly along and packing one gut punch after another. government has already been waning of late, thanks to the abundant mistakes made in both the 'war on terrorism' and George W. Review | The Power of the Dog by Don Winslow

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