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6th out of 118 books
—
70 voters
The Power of the Dog
by
Don Winslow
From the bestselling author of Savages (now an Oliver Stone film).
An explosive novel of the drug trade, The Power of the Dog, takes you deep inside a world riddled with corruption, betrayal, and bloody revenge.
Art Montana is an obsessive DEA agent. The Barrera brothers are heirs to a drug empire. Nora Hayden is a jaded teenager who becomes a high-class hooker. Father Para...more
An explosive novel of the drug trade, The Power of the Dog, takes you deep inside a world riddled with corruption, betrayal, and bloody revenge.
Art Montana is an obsessive DEA agent. The Barrera brothers are heirs to a drug empire. Nora Hayden is a jaded teenager who becomes a high-class hooker. Father Para...more
Paperback, 542 pages
Published
May 9th 2006
by Vintage
(first published 2005)
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This is not my favorite Don Winslow novel. I’d put it at #3 after Savages and The Winter of Frankie Machine. However, considering that Winslow has written over a dozen books and for my money is one of the best and most underrated guys working in crime fiction today, getting a bronze medal is pretty damn good.
Running from the mid-1970s until the turn of the century, Winslow’s historical fiction illustrates the difference between the stated public policy of America’s drug war against the covert ba...more
Running from the mid-1970s until the turn of the century, Winslow’s historical fiction illustrates the difference between the stated public policy of America’s drug war against the covert ba...more
donald, you FUCKING MADMAN! thanks for the recommendation. oh yeah: CIA, DEA, FBI, NSA, NAFTA, irish mob, italian mafia, cold warriors, sandanistas, contras, high-priced whores, corrupt priests, reagan, bush, giuliani, colombian druglords, mexian cartels, campesinos, gomeros, torture, despair, murder, etc... this is one sprawling motherfuck of a great book. this guy leaves lehane and pelecanos and any of his contemporary crime-writers (um, except ellroy) in the dust... i gotta read more of his s...more
24 likes · like · see review
Power of the Dog can sit next to other books that portray the American Dream as dark bruise, such as Libra, American Tabloid, and Dog Soldiers, but it may feel uncomfortable as it lacks their power of prose, depth of character (none of the characters are cartoons though), and stylistic heights: but it does have their ambition and authenticity in its vision of history as double-crosses, compromises, and bloody spectacle. But this unfair as this is really a thriller at heart (especially its finale...more
9 likes · like · see review
not much i can say that hasn't been said already.
how 'bout:
"Deliver my soul from the sword.
My love from the power of the dog."
don winslow is the coldest motherfucker who ever walked.
how 'bout:
"Deliver my soul from the sword.
My love from the power of the dog."
don winslow is the coldest motherfucker who ever walked.
2 likes · like · see review
The Power of the Dog, by Don Winslow, a-minus, narrated by Ray Porter, produced by Blackstone Audio, downloaded from audible.com.
Publisher’s note:
This explosive novel of the drug trade takes you deep inside a world riddled with corruption, betrayal, and bloody revenge.Art Montana is an obsessive
DEA agent. The Barrera brothers are heirs to a drug empire. Nora Hayden is a jaded teenager who becomes a high-class hooker. Father Parada is a powerful
and incorruptible Catholic priest. Callan is an Iris...more
Publisher’s note:
This explosive novel of the drug trade takes you deep inside a world riddled with corruption, betrayal, and bloody revenge.Art Montana is an obsessive
DEA agent. The Barrera brothers are heirs to a drug empire. Nora Hayden is a jaded teenager who becomes a high-class hooker. Father Parada is a powerful
and incorruptible Catholic priest. Callan is an Iris...more
I'm torn on this one because on the one hand, the story is pretty solid. Winslow really unpacks the bureaucracy that makes the war on drugs so snarly. By the time he's through, it's pretty clear which agencies are involved and why and how they're all connected.
Unfortunately, he also writes lines like: "Then the elevator doors slide open and water pours out, like a scene from a bad, grotesque horror film."
And he does it A LOT.
Winslow's good at distilling information, even generating a pretty swe...more
Unfortunately, he also writes lines like: "Then the elevator doors slide open and water pours out, like a scene from a bad, grotesque horror film."
And he does it A LOT.
Winslow's good at distilling information, even generating a pretty swe...more
5 likes · like · see review
Wow. This is ostensibly "fiction" but knowing the 5-6 years of research Winslow did with drug lords, dealers, DEA, CIA, other agencies, etc, it almost reads as nonfiction. In fact I'm tempted to classify it as such. The characters are a disguise for real life.
I know this because I'm somewhat versed in real life on the issue (though not nearly as much as the author) and I know that what he writes as 'fiction', something that could be construed as an incredulous assertion in terms of government c...more
I know this because I'm somewhat versed in real life on the issue (though not nearly as much as the author) and I know that what he writes as 'fiction', something that could be construed as an incredulous assertion in terms of government c...more
This was all right. Somewhere between two and three stars. Winslow keeps up a fairly snappy pace despite scads of narrative summary (though there are at least a few places where the book slows to a crawl). The prose is blunt and surprisingly effective. He's not going to win any awards for scintillating language, but it works. At least a couple of times, the action reached out and grabbed me.
Could have used a few less one-sentence paragraphs. Every so often, I felt like he was in a stutter contes...more
Could have used a few less one-sentence paragraphs. Every so often, I felt like he was in a stutter contes...more
Much more than the rise and fall of a drug kingpin story. How does Winslow pack so much history, so much political commentary, so much story into one 500 page thriller? It takes place over about 25 years, tracing the rise of Mexican drug cartels through the eyes of five main characters: an obsessive DEA agent, an Irish hitman for the New York mob, a high-priced California call girl, a maverick yet influential Catholic priest, and the Mexican drug kingpin. Plenty of other fascinating characters c...more
La prima volta che ho sentito parlare di questo libro è stato leggendo questa recensione
http://gruppodilettura.wordpress.com/...…
Poichè però questo tipo di storie non è esattamente il mio genere, non l'ho preso in considerazione.
Poi però ho letto anche questa:
http://gruppodilettura.wordpress.com/...…
e ho cominciato a pensarci.
Quando infine ho trovato chi poteva prestarmi il libro, mi sono arresa e ho cominciato a leggere.
Siamo negli anni Settanta in Messico. Art Keller - ex agente Cia red...more
http://gruppodilettura.wordpress.com/...…
Poichè però questo tipo di storie non è esattamente il mio genere, non l'ho preso in considerazione.
Poi però ho letto anche questa:
http://gruppodilettura.wordpress.com/...…
e ho cominciato a pensarci.
Quando infine ho trovato chi poteva prestarmi il libro, mi sono arresa e ho cominciato a leggere.
Siamo negli anni Settanta in Messico. Art Keller - ex agente Cia red...more
This is a big novel, epic in scope, The Grapes of Wrath of the Mexican drug empire and America's halfhearted fight against it. The Power of the Dog is a thinly-novelized history of the rise of Mexico's drug cartels and the consequent corruption of its society, government, and law enforcement; the involvement of American organized crime families in the drug trade; the look-the-other-way policies of American government and military leaders seeking to preserve the business-friendly status quo in Me...more
1 like · like · see review
This is a cracker of a novel, ambitious in its scope and multi-layered in plot and characterisation. It's quite retro in it's subject matter, recalling the days of Nicaragua, the Sandinistas, the Cold War communists, the American Mafia and then throws the Irish, the Neo-cons, the Mexican banditos and even Opus Dei into the mix. The plot thunders along and the violence levels are acute, recalling the worst excesses of James Ellroy or James Lee Burke and sometimes verging toward horror as opposed...more
1 like · like · see review
C’erano una volta l’America e il Messico
Sergio Leone mi è venuto in mente soprattutto mentre leggevo l'ultima sfida al rallentatore che (a parte un breve post-finale) chiude questo potente romanzo: pare quasi di sentire le note di Morricone mentre l'inquadratura passa da un personaggio all'altro, ognuno col suo pesante passato imbrattato di sangue, con il suo odio incomprimibile, con la mente tesa all'imminente estremo tradimento che molti dei sette personaggi (gli unici sopravvissuti...) che co...more
Sergio Leone mi è venuto in mente soprattutto mentre leggevo l'ultima sfida al rallentatore che (a parte un breve post-finale) chiude questo potente romanzo: pare quasi di sentire le note di Morricone mentre l'inquadratura passa da un personaggio all'altro, ognuno col suo pesante passato imbrattato di sangue, con il suo odio incomprimibile, con la mente tesa all'imminente estremo tradimento che molti dei sette personaggi (gli unici sopravvissuti...) che co...more
This novel takes place over 30 years and counts 700 pages. It's ostensibly about an ex-CIA agent's personal crusade of vengeance against a Mexican drug smuggler... in the same way as "War and Peace" is about Napoleon's invasion of Russia. Yes, it's that ambitious, all while staying within the confines of a "pulp" genre.
As you can guess, "The Power of the Dog" has an extremely complex plot. Occasionally it feels like Don Winslow bit off more than he could chew, though, and I'm the kind of person...more
As you can guess, "The Power of the Dog" has an extremely complex plot. Occasionally it feels like Don Winslow bit off more than he could chew, though, and I'm the kind of person...more
Damn, Don Winslow's The Power of the Dog is one hell of an ambitious novel. And it came out in 2005 – why haven't I heard about it until now? Obviously, my fault – I blame the usual culprits of isolation and ignorance. I mean I even read the blurb and didn't think much of the premise, but still decided to give it a go. I was dead wrong – the book rocked, I barely put it down. It's got everything an intense retelling of America's war on drugs needs. It aligns so many real and hypothesized events...more
7 likes · like · see review
An epic violent yarn. I'm not sure Winslow's book and the movie Savages can top this book which came first. Why didn't they make this into a movie or even a mini-series? Probably because it's so disturbing. If this were a movie it would be like The Godfather meets Scarface meets The Winds of War. So many different characters meeting each other over the course of two decades. It's about obsession and vengeance and once it's over you are left pondering if anything even changed. Was it worth it? I...more
Novelar periodos históricos recientes a través de personajes ficticios para describir la realidad, puede ser una herramienta mucho más contundente que cualquier artículo escrito para cualquiera de las revistas universitarias más prestigiosas del planeta.
No sé si es el paso del tiempo lo que permite a la gente tener acceso a la verdad y a los secretos de Estado, pero, de ser así, no consigo entender un par de cosas: una; por qué quedan impunes ciertas conductas a pesar de que queda constancia de...more
No sé si es el paso del tiempo lo que permite a la gente tener acceso a la verdad y a los secretos de Estado, pero, de ser así, no consigo entender un par de cosas: una; por qué quedan impunes ciertas conductas a pesar de que queda constancia de...more
Fünf Sterne sind zu wenig! Wenn dieses Buch nur 5 Sterne bekommt, kann ich keinem danach gelesenen Buch mehr die volle Punktzahl geben. Um es kurz zu sagen: Für mich das beste Buch der letzten 2 Jahre!!
Hammermäßige Geschichte mit zahlreichen Handlungssträngen und fantastisch beschriebenen Charakteren. Im Mittelpunkt des in der Druckausgabe knapp 700 Seiten starken Buches steht der US-Drogenfahnder Art Keller, der es sich zur Lebensaufgabe gemacht hat, einen Teil der mexikanischen Drogenmafia von...more
Hammermäßige Geschichte mit zahlreichen Handlungssträngen und fantastisch beschriebenen Charakteren. Im Mittelpunkt des in der Druckausgabe knapp 700 Seiten starken Buches steht der US-Drogenfahnder Art Keller, der es sich zur Lebensaufgabe gemacht hat, einen Teil der mexikanischen Drogenmafia von...more
Se acaban los adjetivos ante esta bestial obra, que repasa varias décadas de lucha antinarcóticos (y no tanto) en América. Mafia neoyorquina, capos mexicanos, las FARC, matones irlandeses, la DEA, putas, obispos, políticos... todo cabe en esta excepcional historia de fronteras, de lo crudo que lo tienen los buenos para acabar con los malos, de las borrosas líneas que separan lo legal de lo ilegal... en "El poder del perro" corre la sangre a raudales, la coca viaja al norte, los dólares y las arm...more
This is the second Don Winslow book I've read, the first being SAVAGES. All I can say after reading it is there is no way Don Winslow writes without a serious outlining system (and I mean that in a very, very good way). The book has a large number of characters and weaves them in and out of the plot throughout the 560 pages. I totally enjoyed this book and its ability to entertain while also making a point, which, to me, was, "There's no way we will ever win a war on drugs." I was a little shock...more
The only reason I picked up this novel was a suggestion by a Mark Greaney, he of the Gray Man novel and soon to be released on Target (Sept. 28th,2010, sorry I had to get that in there; I am looking forward to it). I think highly of Mark and his opinions, so I tried to get The Power of the Dog a.s.a.p., figuring that this is going to be a hot read. I got it, I looked at the back cover for the synopsis of the novel, and I was totally intrigued. Here is what is on the back cover: “Art Keller is an...more
2 likes · like · see review
Apr 29, 2013
Alonzo
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
border,
california,
drugs,
father-daughter,
family,
friendship,
genocide,
identity,
mexico,
murder,
psychology,
religion,
war,
war-on-drugs
This is a long book, but the length (as Jane Smiley writes about in 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel) is a promise, not a threat.
The action is quick, the tension is high and the conflict is believable. There are neither purely good guys, nor completely evil bad guys. It seems like Winslow covered everything from family to feigned friendship, from faith to agnosticism, from obsession to oppression.
The War on Drugs plays a major role in this novel, as does the U.S.'s use of that travesty and failu...more
The action is quick, the tension is high and the conflict is believable. There are neither purely good guys, nor completely evil bad guys. It seems like Winslow covered everything from family to feigned friendship, from faith to agnosticism, from obsession to oppression.
The War on Drugs plays a major role in this novel, as does the U.S.'s use of that travesty and failu...more
Tja, was soll man ueber dieses Buch sagen. Es ist grossartig recherchiert! Es mangelt bei Gott nicht an Action. Im Prinzip verlaeuft die Handlung absolut nie wie man es erwartet. Es wird auch absolut nicht einseitig berichtet. Man lernt alle Seiten kennen. Mir gefiel auch, das Winslow immer wieder die Familien rausarbeitet, die Ehefrauen, die Kinder die auf den Papa warten... sehr gut erzaehlt! Sicherlich extremst realitaetsnah.
Aber... ich war zu zart beseitet fuer dieses Buch. Es ist das Brutal...more
Aber... ich war zu zart beseitet fuer dieses Buch. Es ist das Brutal...more
This is either a two-star or a four-star, I can't work it out for myself.
Four star: Great, ripped from the headlines action of an epic Mexican drug war plot. It pulls in all kinds of historical detail on CIA programs and crime headlines into a coherent whole. The whole thing is well dramatized, with satisfying emotional arcs. And some great action sequences.
Two-star: Some bad prose. (It's a thriller; suck it up.) But more damning, there are definite moments of "Huh... why didn't he just have one...more
Four star: Great, ripped from the headlines action of an epic Mexican drug war plot. It pulls in all kinds of historical detail on CIA programs and crime headlines into a coherent whole. The whole thing is well dramatized, with satisfying emotional arcs. And some great action sequences.
Two-star: Some bad prose. (It's a thriller; suck it up.) But more damning, there are definite moments of "Huh... why didn't he just have one...more
This book was much more ambitious than the average Winslow book -- three storylines, dozens and dozens of characters, and a page count that clocked in at over 500 pages. The plots (which feature a Mexican drug cartel, American organized crime, and the DEA) weave together against the backdrop of the War on Drugs over the course of several decades. While it is, on one level, about the War on Drugs, the real theme seemed to be revenge, and how, when exacted, it can take just as much of a toll on th...more
This book was amazing. I literally could not put it down. I've read a few of Winslow's novels (Savages, Death and Life of Bobby Z, California Fire and Life) and liked them, but this just blew them all out of the water. It was like after I read this book I had a void that I couldn't fill with any other book because this one was just SO GOOD. You can read the synopsis for it anywhere online but basically it's a fictional history of the rise of the Mexican Drug trade and goes from the 1970s to the...more
I first came across Don Winslow several years back when reading a Sunday Times column by Jeremy Clarkson. I can't remember what car Clarkson was reviewing now, but in his usual inimitable way, he began his review at a tangent by discussing this amazing book he had been reading called the Power of the Dog. So I checked it out and discovered one of the finest thriller writers I have ever read
Don't be put off by the slightly weird title. The book is a well researched story about the Mexican drug c...more
Don't be put off by the slightly weird title. The book is a well researched story about the Mexican drug c...more
Incredible. With books that are hyped as much as this one was, I'm always a little skeptical when I end up reading them, but in this case it's entirely justified.
It's the story of one man's battle against a Mexican drug syndicate over a course of more than twenty years, told through the eyes of the cops, various gangsters and politicians. It's dark, it's gritty, it's very, very compelling, intelligent and well written. None of the main characters can be called "good" after a while, but they all...more
It's the story of one man's battle against a Mexican drug syndicate over a course of more than twenty years, told through the eyes of the cops, various gangsters and politicians. It's dark, it's gritty, it's very, very compelling, intelligent and well written. None of the main characters can be called "good" after a while, but they all...more
A killer contemporary crime book that weaves a dizzying panorama of the Mexican drug cartels (and surrounding players) and their 40 year development into one of the great influencing powers over politics and policy in the western world. Winslow's writing is fast, lean and fierce. More 'burned and buried' than 'hard-boiled' or 'pulp'. "Power of the Dog" paints a picture of the 'War On Drugs' that is so grim, so corrupt to the core, so failed in every single way that the American 'War on Drugs' ha...more
1 like · like · see review
Tremenda la parte de "ficción" pero mucho más terribles los párrafos de "historia". El tópico de que la realidad supera a la ficción se cumple a rajatabla en esta novela de ritmo endiablado y absorbente.
Se leen de un tirón (bueno, de dos tirones) las 700 páginas de la historia del narcotráfico en México y sus conexiones con los narcos colombianos, Centroamérica, la CIA, el Opus, la contra nicaragüense, las FARC, el programa de eliminación sistemática de los líderes izquierdistas en Centroamérica...more
Se leen de un tirón (bueno, de dos tirones) las 700 páginas de la historia del narcotráfico en México y sus conexiones con los narcos colombianos, Centroamérica, la CIA, el Opus, la contra nicaragüense, las FARC, el programa de eliminación sistemática de los líderes izquierdistas en Centroamérica...more
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Don Winslow was born in New York City but raised in South Kingstown, Rhode Island. At various times an actor, director, movie theater manager, safari guide and private investigator, Don has done many things on his way to being a novelist.
His first novel, A Cool Breeze On The Underground, was nominated for an Edgar, and a later book, California Fire and Life, received the Shamus Award. The Death An...more
More about Don Winslow...
His first novel, A Cool Breeze On The Underground, was nominated for an Edgar, and a later book, California Fire and Life, received the Shamus Award. The Death An...more
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“You don’t let them knock you out, you make them knock you out. You make them break their fucking hands knocking you out, you let them know that they’ve been in a fight, you give them something to remember you by every time they look in a mirror.”
—
15 people liked it
“The Americans take a product that literally grows on trees and turn it into a valuable commodity. Without
them, cocaine and marijuana would be like oranges, and instead of making billions smuggling it, I’d be making pennies doing stoop labor in some California field, picking it.”
—
5 people liked it
More quotes…
them, cocaine and marijuana would be like oranges, and instead of making billions smuggling it, I’d be making pennies doing stoop labor in some California field, picking it.”
"
Great review Kemper!
15 mai 08:26
Thanks!
15 mai 08:30