The Power of the Dog

This is my first Don Winslow book that I have read and after 20 pages I was hooked. A thrilling read about an American agent in Mexico tracking the drug lords and trying to stop their trade.Warning - the type face in this book is smaller than usual so if you prefer larger words on the page then this is not the book for you.The action is fast paced which keeps you coming back for more to find out what is happening next as the plot twists and turns in unexpected ways. Who will come out on top, Art Keller, an American-Hispanic DEA agent, or the Barrera family.I have already purchased the next book, The Cartel, and look forward to reading that next.

Wow. Don Winslow is the business.Flies through some pretty complex, pulp, gruesome but all in all.... I would describe his style as definitely not mainstream, perhaps pulp...Resembles in a better way some of Matheson finest, as crude as Eddie Bunker and more subtle and a touch of Trevanian.I have read most of his bibliography back in Italy published by Einaudi. The power of the Dog is, in my opinion, his best effort. The Cartel and The winter of Frankie Machine excellent too.Very romantic and worth reading if you like pulp, crime and anti-hero narrative.... There you go. Awesome

This is a story so intense and ferocious that it almost leaps off the pages like a Pit Bull on steroids! Yes, it's that good. It's a powerful novel that intelligently traces the rise of the Mexican drug cartels as seen through the eyes of the five main characters: Art Keller, an obsessive DEA agent, Callan, an Irish hitman for the New York mob, Nora, a high-priced California call girl, Father Juan, a very influential Catholic priest, and one of the Mexican drug barons (who will remain nameless to avoid a plot spoiler).Don Winslow is very good at distilling information and uses this skill to great effect here when describing the politics and intricacies relating to how America waged its War on drugs during the 70's, 80's and 90's. This may be a fictional account of that period but so much of the story is laced with hard truth.Reading The Power of The Dog was an education in itself and an eye-opener to the violent and cynical reality of the drug dealing world. The nearest thing we get to a 'good guy' in the book is when we read about the life and exploits of Art Keller, a DEA agent who appears to make it his life-long quest to bring down the drug Cartels. But even such a stalwart as Art sometimes has to ask what on earth he is trying to accomplish. At one stage in the proceedings, Art ruminates over what exactly he and his fellow enforcers are attempting to achieve. He reaches the point where he can't decide whether the War on Drugs is an obscene absurdity or an absurd obscenity. In either case (thinks he), it's a tragic bloody farce with the emphasis on bloody.Violence plays a big part in this book - so it's not for the faint of heart or the squeamish. And then there's the corruption. Oh boy, the corruption is rife! Within the narrative we quickly get to understand how the officials were 'got at' with no subtlety whatsoever. The drug lords would send out their 'lieutenants' who would simply go to the local Mexican Police Commandante or an Army Commander with a bag full cash and give the choice "plata o plomo" AKA "silver or lead".The meaning was clear - you can get rich or you can get dead, you choose. Most people chose rich!This is one of those books that really got beneath my skin and contained a story that stayed with me long after I had finished it. In a word it was terrific and its a novel that I highly recommend.

Incredible storytelling. Weaves across the stories of several characters - the drug barons, the law enforcement, the politicians. With detailed descriptions that are so true. Thrills and horror at the casual brutality that is handed out. Great drama. If you took this on holiday you wouldn't get off your sunlounger until you had finished it. I would have liked to lock myself away with room service so I could just get on and read it without interruptions.

I like Don Winslow. I like his quirky, literary mind, his enthusiasm for Peregrine Pickle, Cuchulain, and his understanding of the influence these fabled characters have on his allegedly untogether but self-effacing heroes like the redoubtable Neal Carey, and in this novel, Callan.Aside from "The Power of the Dog", my favourite is his first, "A Cool Breeze on the Underground", in which Carey messes with London punks and holes up in the Lake District. Winslow is a Yank, but seems to know Britain quite well. His second book evidences a decent knowledge of China, and his third and fourth seem at home in the mid-west.I understand "The Power of the Dog" took him six years to research. Some say it is not really fiction, and at many points it reveals a comprehensive understanding of the history of the whole of Central America over a thirty year span. In particular showing how your nice cuddly Ronald Reagan, among others, terrorised a whole region of the world in the interests of protecting the USA from Communism, as he thought. Personally I've never read anything that has made me think Communism as such was ever going to take a hold in that region, just farmers trying to make a living.I have read several nonfictional accounts of recent history in Central America and at no point does "The Power of the Dog" make me think, `Oh, he's gone way off here.'Perhaps it is easier to construct a dynamite plot which doesn't creak at the hinges when it is all based on reality.Either way it is up there with Stone's film "Salvador" as a brilliant fictional treatment of the dark underbelly of US Imperialism.