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Darwin8u's Reviews > The Border
The Border
by
by
“Mexico is a country where the temples of the new gods are built on the gravesites of the old.�
� Don Winslow, The Border
A fantastic ending to the "Power of the Dog" trilogy. Dickens-level story telling (well, perhaps not Dickens). I'll write more later, but these three books are almost at le Carré level in literary indignation. The writing is not always literary, but G-d, Winslow was firing on all his cylinders with this book. Winslow writes very good crime fiction under normal circumstances, but piss him off and he writes fantastic crime fiction.
I delayed reading this for a couple reasons. First, I loved The Power of the Dog and The Cartel so much I felt the Border was bound to disappoint, just statistically. Second, I delayed because Winslow's previous "big" novel, The Force, was good but kinda still a disappointment. Not top shelf Winslow. But the book sucked me in and wouldn't let me go until the ride was over.
One of my only quibbles was Winslow's use of Trump/Kushner-like characters (barely veiled) in this book. I was certain it wouldn't work and on a couple occasions it surfed right up to the edge of useful fiction, but Winslow knew where that line was and might graze it but never crossed it (or if he did, he snuck back without getting caught).
Anyway, I can't recommend the trilogy highly enough. I would still put the Karla trilogy higher, but I'm not sure there is another trilogy in the last 50 years that got as close to John le Carré as this one by Winslow.
� Don Winslow, The Border
A fantastic ending to the "Power of the Dog" trilogy. Dickens-level story telling (well, perhaps not Dickens). I'll write more later, but these three books are almost at le Carré level in literary indignation. The writing is not always literary, but G-d, Winslow was firing on all his cylinders with this book. Winslow writes very good crime fiction under normal circumstances, but piss him off and he writes fantastic crime fiction.
I delayed reading this for a couple reasons. First, I loved The Power of the Dog and The Cartel so much I felt the Border was bound to disappoint, just statistically. Second, I delayed because Winslow's previous "big" novel, The Force, was good but kinda still a disappointment. Not top shelf Winslow. But the book sucked me in and wouldn't let me go until the ride was over.
One of my only quibbles was Winslow's use of Trump/Kushner-like characters (barely veiled) in this book. I was certain it wouldn't work and on a couple occasions it surfed right up to the edge of useful fiction, but Winslow knew where that line was and might graze it but never crossed it (or if he did, he snuck back without getting caught).
Anyway, I can't recommend the trilogy highly enough. I would still put the Karla trilogy higher, but I'm not sure there is another trilogy in the last 50 years that got as close to John le Carré as this one by Winslow.
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