The Border: A Novel (Power of the Dog, 3)

There is a lot to unpack here. I have been looking forward to this book ever since Winslow announced he was writing it.I read The Power of the Dog a few years back and was blown away. Jumped right into The Cartel - same story. Each one so well researched, such a feeling of authenticity and reality, but at the same time so exciting and dramatic. Characters I felt truly invested in. Plot developments that truly surprised and shocked me. And all the while a compelling and enjoyable reading experience. You can’t beat it.One thing I loved so much about The Cartel was how it built upon TPOTD and incorporated real world developments that made it feel essential and relevant. Hearing Winslow talk about the books, he says something to the effect of feeling done after each one with the war on drugs, but then something new would happen in real life that he felt he had to write about. I really felt that with The Cartel. It wasn’t just a continuation in the normal sense. It wasn’t just another book in the series. More of the same. It was a true evolution of the first book, reflecting the evolution of the war on drugs in real life.The Border does all of this while bringing everything full circle. Again it’s not just The Cartel pt. 2 - more of what you liked with slightly different plot points. It’s a complete evolution of Art Keller’s journey that again reflects the developments and happenings of the real world. It makes The Border feel urgent, pressing, vital for the times we are living through.So how does it stack up against the first two? Just as good as a stand-alone experience. It has characters I cared about. Drama. Action. Excitement. Suspense. Thought provoking insights. To summarize, it’s really good.BUT when taken as a completion of the trilogy it takes on a new significance and joy for me. If you somehow could isolate the merits of each book and compare, everyone will have their favorites for different reasons. The Border is special to me in how it serves as a true finale of the trilogy. It’s tying things off from the first two. Bringing closure. Completing the story. Paying off plot threads and character moments that I’ve been invested in for years. In that sense it’s hard to beat the experience of The Border for me. Because wrapped in it I have the enjoyment of both previous books coming to a beautiful conclusion and climax. If you liked the first two, I can’t see how you wouldn’t love this one. If you liked the first two, honestly you probably don’t need me to tell you any of this.Having said all of that I would recommend you start at the beginning if you haven’t read the other books. It’s worth the journey, truly. I re-read both books in a couple of weeks in January in anticipation of this release and even on a second reading they are just as good and exciting.Now to the trump of it all. I suppose this is a very political book. Even though if you’ve read the past two you really should be on board with the fact that the war on drugs is not a partisan issue. Anyway, if you’re a huge Trump fan this book may make you upset. Can’t help you there. I for one was excited to see how Winslow would tie all of that in, and I was not disappointed. All I can say is Winslow does his research, and the picture he paints here is scary for all of us if there is even a sliver of truth to it.I loved this book. It’s 700+ pages and I think I tore through it in four or five days. I constantly was reading or wishing I could be reading it until I finished. And I’m sure I will be thinking about it for a long time to come.

Fell into the series and read start to finish every night without let up. Winslow is a master. As a former journalist during the mob days in Las Vegas I know the challenges of piling name on top of name and losing the audience. Never happened with Winslow. He brought the story to life. Great fiction is more accurate than non-fiction-unconstrained by facts, it speaks to higher truths.

THE BORDER is the final volume in Don Winslow's drugs/border/Art Keller trilogy. It is long. 720 pp. worth of long. The texture is dense and there are many, many characters. The NYT reviewer suggested that a list of the dramatis personae, marking their cartel relationships would be very helpful, but then it would also be a giant spoiler in that the characters change sides, betray and murder one another. The map of Mexico which the book provides is very helpful but I too would have liked a genealogical chart of the many players.The book is not really a thriller, though there is a great deal of suspense. It is, in part, a multi-generational saga (though not of the sort that Edna Ferber would write). It is also what some would term a panoramic novel. The setting is actually the U.S., Mexico and Central America and this ties in with a central theme. Given the interconnections (legal and criminal) between the countries involved, there really is no border per se. The borders in which DW are interested are the borders between good and evil and right and wrong, particularly as these are experienced within the individual human heart. While the book superficially mirrors THE GODFATHER, a more profound inspiration is Conrad's HEART OF DARKNESS. H of D is the most frequently taught book in all of English departmental history. Hence it is appropriate for one of DW's principal themes—the pervasive nature of the conflict between the doings of the individual heart and the larger cultural and economic patterns which threaten to overwhelm it.The novel is also panoramic in the sense that it offers individual plot arcs that appear to be totally different and disconnected—the life of a 10 year-old Guatemalan boy trying to make it to NYC; the life of a Staten Island junkie; the life of a former hitman for the mob who later works for the cartels, and so on. Eventually these strands are connected. DW is attempting to put human faces on the statistical realities and leverage the immense power of empathy which the novel-as-form enjoys.DW nails the settings, hits important themes and develops them at length, and offers a stunning array of interesting and engaging characters. He weaves all of these materials into a set of plot arcs that eventually merge with a primary plot arc. The craftsmanship and research which these tasks require is immense and DW is fully up to the job.There is just one problem. DW loathes Donald Trump and has said so in uncompromising fashion in public fora. DJT is introduced here with a fictional name but his physical appearance, the intonation, rhythms and thematic elements of his speech are unmistakable. The 'fictional' president has a son-in-law who also works in NYC real estate. Here (SPOILER) he is involved with a bank supported by drug cartel money that helps bail him out of a difficult financial situation. The 'fictional' president also does things which his real-life opponents fear and are prepared to despise (e.g., he fires the special counsel investigating him).There are several ways that historical fiction can proceed. Thomas Mallon, e.g., names names and then reinvents part of the historical record, but he does so in surprising but always plausible ways. In this novel the president and his son-in-law are presented as their opponents see them, with a thin fictional drape, but they are then depicted as doing things which they have simply not done or things for which no evidence has yet been adduced. This creates a huge distraction in the novel, particularly as it reaches its climax and it unnecessarily alienates potential readers. It gives the appearance of a settled vendetta when, we must remember, DW has been working on this trilogy for a third of his life and DJT had only been president for about a year and a half when DW presented his manuscript to his editor at Morrow. Ruminations on our border policies also come across as preachy. DW has created a vast and wonderful fictional edifice which can speak for itself.One wonders why Knopf did not publish the third volume in the trilogy. In moving to Morrow (or being forced to leave Knopf) DW lost the opportunity to be edited by Sonny Mehta, the current industry's closest thing to Maxwell Perkins. DW points out, somewhat wistfully, that Sonny Mehta was presented with some 2,000 manuscript pages for one of the first two volumes in the trilogy and then had to reduce the bulk and shape it into form.Bottom line: a great trilogy but marred by a significant distraction in the latter pages of the final volume.

Buckle up! This is a really good one. Don Winslow is the great American Author. I wish there was more.

Compra, embalaje,envío perfecto y rápido

Pessoal.Ese cara. E. O maior escritor sobre todos os outrros

No writer knows more about drug cartels nor writes about them better than Winslow. This is the third book of his trilogy (The Power of the Dog, The Cartel, The Border), and it`s terrific. It follows a number of intertwined stories:-There`s the wars among the various Mexican cartels for control of the drug trade in the various regions.-There`s the tracing of the flow of heroin, from the poppy fields of Mexico to the dealers and users on the streets of New York.-There`s the story of three children trying to make their way from the hell hole of Guatemala to the USA.-And there`s the thinly disguised "roman a clef" of a U.S. Administration, involved in money laundering and rife with corruption; it`s ineffective and harebrained efforts, including inhumane treatment of immigrants, to try and stem the flow of drugs across the Border.This is a book as current as today`s news, must reading not only for Realists and blind eye Trumpers, but for everyone concerned with the drug, criminal and political world of today.Highly Recommended.

Great Nobel. Puts you up to date of things!

Le dernier opus de la trilogie de Winslow (La griffe du chien, Le Cartel, et enfin The Border) est a la hauteur des précédents et conclue magnifiquement un moment de lecture rare pour le passionné du genre que je suis, qui plus est vivant au Mexique. Absolument genial, un grand bravo a l'auteur.