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The Cartel

(Power of the Dog #2)

Don Winslow (Goodreads Author)

4.31 · Rating details · 27,698 ratings · 2,320 reviews

From the internationally best-selling author of the acclaimed novel The Power of the Dog comes The Cartel, a gripping, true-to-life, ripped-from-the-headlines epic story of power, corruption, revenge, and justice spanning the past decade of the Mexican-American drug wars.

It’s 2004. DEA agent Art Keller has been fighting the war on drugs for thirty years in a blood feud aga ...more

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Hardcover, 616 pages

Published June 23rd 2015 by Knopf (first published May 22nd 2015)

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Aug 13, 2017 Rick Riordan rated it it was amazing

Winslow is such an awesome writer. He’s one of those people who makes storytelling look easy, even for other storytellers like me, who know very well that it is NOT easy. The amount of research he did for this book must have been staggering. It is a fictionalized telling of the recent drug wars in Mexico and beyond, with all the gore and horror that I remember from the headlines when I was still living in South Texas. It felt so real, so true to what happened, that I started fearing for the auth ...more

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Apr 24, 2015 Kemper rated it really liked it

Shelves: mexico, mob, 5-0, 2015, crime-mystery

There’s a scene in this book in which a Mexican drug lord essentially strolls out of prison thanks to a corrupt system. Reality imitated art a few weeks after it was released when a Mexican drug lord escaped prison via a tunnel so elaborate that it’s very hard to believe it could have been built unnoticed by prison officials.

Don Winslow isn’t a prophet.* He’s just a very talented crime writer who has spent years researching the war on drugs, and he knows all too well how the same mistakes have ...more

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Aug 03, 2017 David Putnam rated it it was amazing

The Cartel was a good book but is overshadowed by the greatness of Power of the Dog, the first book in the trilogy. I have the third book on the TBR pile. These books are about the rise of the narcotic cartels in Mexico. In the beginning South America controlled the narcotic pipeline with Mexico merely the middleman. This is the story of how that power shifted and Mexico became the driver in the drug business. The books are well researched and so compelling they are hard to put down. I highly re ...more

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Aug 13, 2015 Darwin8u rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2015

"...at the end of the day or the end of the world, there are no seperate souls. We will go to heaven or we will go to hell, but we will go together."
- Don Winslow, The Cartel

description

I went into this thinking I was going to get Tom Clancy+, but actually ended up with a novel closer to Norman Mailer. 'The Cartel', and Don Winslow's previous book on the Mexican drug trade ('The Power of the Dog') are best described as a two-part, fictionalized history of the War on Drugs in Mexico.

I was first drawn to read this by my little brother who was pimping it hard. He mentioned that he heard 'Ben Afflick' couldn't even get in the bid for the rights to this movie. It optioned for $1M with something like a $5M kicker when the movie got made. I think a similar deal got made for 'The Power of the Dog'. Perhaps, Leonardo Di Capro will star. Perhaps the director from Cormac McCarthy's drug cartel movie (yes, the one where Cameron Diaz makse love to a car) may even direct it. Kinda surreal.

Also, it wasn't like I went into this novel not knowing about the drug cartels in Mexico. I live just outside of Phoenix. We used to travel once or twice a year across the border to Rocky Point, but as the Zetas and the violence escalated along the border towns a few years back, our trips decreased. There just seemed to be too much cost for the benefit of sand, 800mg Ibuprofen, and smooth daiquiris. Even still, reading this was like discovering your favorite wound isn't just infected, but hosting a bunch of ugly parasites AND you are largely to blame.

Anyway, it is a total history. Winslow delivers the scope and the horror of the Drug War. He shows the impact on the people, the journalists, the poor. He shows the complicity of the US, the corruption of the Mexican police, the Mexican army, the Mexican politicos. It could easily have devolved into a Zeta snuff film, but Winslow turns it into a powerful piece of historical fiction. It is selling like it is just a thriller, but don't let the flash fool you. There is meat here. There is a body in this burning book. Again, the closest I can get to how reading this feels is Mailer's Harlot's Ghost, Littell's The Company, or Ellroy's The Black Dahlia. This isn't Dostoevsky, but it for sure for shit ain't Clancy. ...more

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Nov 21, 2015 Trish rated it it was amazing

Shelves: audio, horror, historical-novel, totally-unexpected, true-crime, fiction, journalism, war, literature, america

This is a huge book in every way—for its effects on people’s thinking and actions, in its implications for drug policy worldwide, and in the scope of its historical documentation. It is very up to date. In the fabulous and informative July 13, 2015 interview at Politics & Prose, the Washington, D.C. bookstore, and published online by Slate magazine, Winslow describes the genesis of this book and his writing process.

For writers, this downloadable Soundcloud podcast is a must-listen for how one ...more

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Mar 11, 2019 Matt rated it really liked it

Shelves: crime, contemporary-fiction

“Pablo groans. He’s not behind in his rent, doesn’t need a child support payment, so a narco story is simply an exercise in tedium. The truth is that the narcos are generally stupid, brutal thugs – once you’ve written about one of them, you’ve written about them all. Any anyway, who cares?”
- Don Winslow, The Cartel

Less than halfway through The Cartel, a Juarez journalist named Pablo Mora is given an assignment to cover “the drug situation.” He thinks the above-quoted thoughts, ruing the repeti ...more

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Jul 18, 2015 Roxane rated it really liked it

Violent and devastating look at the "war on drugs." An indictment, really, of both the drug kingpins and law enforcement. Thoroughly absorbing. A bit long in places. But wow. Mercilessly grim in a good way. Some interesting women characters of which I wish there were more. One hell of a read. Art Keller, who is the bitter heart and soul of this book has a fascinating moral code. This is an epic. ...more

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Dec 17, 2015 Sam Quixote rated it it was ok

Drugs are bad, m’kay? And so’s Don Winslow’s latest novel, The Cartel, m’kay?

Ok, I’ll stop that (m’kay?)!

The Cartel spans a decade of the Mexican drug wars from 2004. That’s basically the “story” because what follows for 640(!) pages is a sprawling mess of characters and horrific incidents none of which adds up to anything.

There’s Art Keller, a 50-something former DEA agent who’s retired from locking up drug lords and taken to the monastic life before returning for one last job (what is this, Drugs are bad, m’kay? And so’s Don Winslow’s latest novel, The Cartel, m’kay?

Ok, I’ll stop that (m’kay?)!

The Cartel spans a decade of the Mexican drug wars from 2004. That’s basically the “story” because what follows for 640(!) pages is a sprawling mess of characters and horrific incidents none of which adds up to anything.

There’s Art Keller, a 50-something former DEA agent who’s retired from locking up drug lords and taken to the monastic life before returning for one last job (what is this, a Steven Seagal movie?!). His totally unconvincing “nemesis” is Adan Barrera, head of the biggest Mexican Cartel, La Federacion, who gets sent to prison where he meets the love of his life, a former beauty queen called Magda. With the head honcho in prison, La Federacion breaks up into factions as a power struggle commences leading to the rise of the ruthless Zetas, a cartel of ex-military thugs.

Also thrown into the mix is Pablo, a journalist covering the drug wars, who’s going through a rough divorce and trying to keep custody of his son. There’s a child soldier, Chuy, who earns the nickname Jesus the Kid, after becoming a successful cartel hitman. There’s “Crazy” Eddie Ruiz, a former high school football star turned drug lord. And there’s several dozen other characters too – hence “sprawling mess”!

Broadly, the novel follows these various characters as Barrera leaves prison and begins regaining control of his drug empire from the Zetas while avoiding the American DEA. What that actually means is that most of the novel is one nightmarish thing happening after another between the different sides. The cartels battle against each other in escalating, out-of-control violence with huge numbers of assassinations, beheadings, mutilations, people being burned alive in oil barrels, rape, all happening to men, women and children.

The violence is gratuitous even if Winslow’s basing this upon reality and the descriptions over hundreds and hundreds of pages, once past the initial shock, results is a numbing in the reader to this madness. It’s one-note and it becomes very boring very quickly for very long.

Scattered throughout this rambling narrative are standalone stories that don’t add to the main story but serve to illustrate how the drug wars affect ordinary people. An old country gentleman defends his house single-handedly from the Zetas, taking more than a few with him, and there’s the tragic story of a drugged-out whore who was once the mistress of a corrupt cop. While these tangents add to the already obnoxious page count, some aren’t half bad and are actually more interesting than what’s happening to the recurring characters.

Quite why there was so much attention paid to Pablo and his divorce, I don’t know, as none of it was interesting. Nor was it clear how former beauty queen Magda suddenly became a whiz at the drug business once she became Barrera’s woman. Keller and Barrera’s rivalry, supposedly the core conflict of the book, was never once convincing and felt like b-movie schlock at best.

That’s what struck me as odd because Winslow can write, really well sometimes - his other novels like Savages and The Winter of Frankie Machine, were great! Why then he decided to write real-life crime drama through the lens of poorly realised corny characters and repetitive “shock” violence that goes nowhere, is a mystery. His writing in The Cartel is among the worst I’ve read from him.

Winslow creates one character in a particularly contrived fashion. She’s a young woman who decides to become the law in a small town – no other cop will do the job so she decides to become the sheriff. She becomes like a surrogate daughter to Keller and his girlfriend and guess what happens to her? The same thing that happens to every non-corrupt cop in Mexico. In comics, this term is called the “women in refrigerators” trope, where a female character is hurt/killed purely to provide motivation for the male character. That’s what her role in this story is for Keller. In other words, lazy bullshit writing.

Sure, Winslow shows us the horrors of the drug wars and comments banally that it will continue because of the industry behind it. Not just the drug consumers but the increasingly militarised police, the DEA, the prison system, the border authorities, and on and on. The Cartel is a reference to the whole mess, not just the actual cartels who run the drug businesses but the American government, the oil companies who legitimize drug kingpins by working in partnership with them, and various agencies like the DEA. Everyone’s bad, m’kay?

As a novel though, it’s a very tedious read with few moments of interest. Full of one-dimensional characters, a non-existent plot, and one nasty scene after another, The Cartel leaves an unpleasant taste in the mouth. Don Winslow, rather than say anything enlightening about the Mexican drug wars, goes for repeated cheap shocks to sustain the reader’s attention and falls short long before the forced end. ...more

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Jul 11, 2019 Matt rated it really liked it

“The Cartel” and “The Power of the Dog” are two very different books. Winslow manages to keep his content fresh by switching his focus. Both books are meant to give insight into America’s “war on drugs”, however, “The Cartel” has a much more journalistic feel to it. Winslow is a master at writing about long spans of time. The book takes place from 2004-2014. Winslow still manages to incorporate a lot of depth while also managing to cover many bullet point headlines that one would expect to see i ...more

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Jun 29, 2016 Perry rated it it was amazing

Shelves: mina-favoritböcker, books-most-loved

High-Octane Thriller of Mexican Drug Wars
Fallout from America's Opioid Crisis: Opioid Alternative, Cinnamon & Black Tar Heroin Priced to Sell by Sinaloa Cartel and Mexican Rivals

“The Mexicans have finally found a drug that white trash likes and can afford. And one thing you ain’t never gonna run out of is white trash.”
***
“Just across the bridge is the gigantic marketplace, the insatiable consumer machine that drives the violence here. North Americans smoke the dope, snort the coke, shoot the he

High-Octane Thriller of Mexican Drug Wars
Fallout from America's Opioid Crisis: Opioid Alternative, Cinnamon & Black Tar Heroin Priced to Sell by Sinaloa Cartel and Mexican Rivals

“The Mexicans have finally found a drug that white trash likes and can afford. And one thing you ain’t never gonna run out of is white trash.”
***
“Just across the bridge is the gigantic marketplace, the insatiable consumer machine that drives the violence here. North Americans smoke the dope, snort the coke, shoot the heroin, do the meth, and then have the nerve to point south (down, of course, on the map), and wag their fingers at the 'Mexican drug problem' and Mexican corruption.”

The Cartel, Don Winslow

In case you haven't heard of him, Don Winslow is now the Don of Crime Fiction, stories expertly written, thoroughly researched, sweeping in scope and in Hollywood's high demand. His latest crime novel, "The Force," is an NYPD cop tale of Shakespearean dimensions (I say this with all seriousness). He begins it with a quote from Raymond Chandler about cops being regular people: "... They start out that way, I've heard."

The Cartel is an electrifying ride beside true-to-life characters who live and traverse over the mountainous battlefields of the Mexican drug wars. Don Winslow poured himself into the research of the Mexican journalists who risked their lives (some died) for their honesty and integrity in reporting on the brutal, butcherly wars among the drug trafficking, organized crime syndicates, and of the corrupt government officials bought to look the other way and/or to protect the Cartel.

To achieve as much truth as possible for this stunning story on the Sinaloa Cartel and El Chapo Guzmán, Winslow also conducted his own investigation by interviewing family members of the innocents killed as well as of past and present soldiers (anonymously) involved in the drug warfare.

The result is a provocative novel, wired with tension from beginning to end.

If you haven't read a Don Winslow novel, I highly recommend "The Cartel" or "The Force." ...more

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Nov 17, 2017 G.H. Eckel rated it really liked it

Imagine a 17 hour Ken Burns' movie in a novel and you get Don Winslow's, The Cartel. It's an epic story of the drug cartels in Mexico, their turf wars, and their fight with government forces that are as violent and ruthless as the cartels they seek to destroy. The novel focuses on one Don who comes back into power after a stint in jail, and the American agent who originally put him there and wants him incarcerated again. The story is fictional but rings true because it's based on real cartels, e ...more

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Dec 31, 2018 aPriL does feral sometimes rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: cold-hard-mean, everyone-hears-them-scream, illuminating, macho-man, very-very-disturbing-to-me, poverty-and-ignorance-suck, historical-fiction, horror, unbearably-sad, awesome-porn-of-all-flavors

Two books by Don Winslow together tell the story of America’s “war on drugs” from its beginnings in the post-Vietnam war years of the 1970’s through the increasingly violent front-page crack/cocaine drug-dealing decades up to the more current apathetic backpage interest or desensitized year of 2015. Both books follow the main character Art Keller, along with other few, very few, sadly, continuing characters.

In the first book in the series, The Power of the Dog, Keller is a young hopeful altruis ...more

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Jun 08, 2015 Mark Rubinstein rated it it was amazing

I've read nearly everything Don Winslow has written and think he's one of the most innovative writers out there. The Cartel is an opus of a book and follow-up to his earlier novel, The Power of the Dog. This powerhouse book finds DEA agent Art Keller plunged into the Mexican-American drug cartel wars firing up on both sides of the border, even in Central America. This is a gripping saga, but don't be intimidated by its 624 pages--it reads like a drug rush with Keller pursuing Adan Barrera, the p ...more

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May 22, 2017 Richard rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: globe-trotting, crime-mystery-thriller, author-don-winslow

The Cartel picks up years after the final events in Winslow's drug war chronicle The Power of the Dog . And if you thought Dog was epic, wait till you get a load of this one. In a culmination of their 30-year feud, cartel lord Adán Barrera and DEA legend Art Keller have both lost everything and are stuck in their own prisons. Adán is living large behind the bars of a Mexican prison that he turns into his personal headquarters, and Art is living in seclusion at a border monastery. But when Adá The Cartel picks up years after the final events in Winslow's drug war chronicle The Power of the Dog . And if you thought Dog was epic, wait till you get a load of this one. In a culmination of their 30-year feud, cartel lord Adán Barrera and DEA legend Art Keller have both lost everything and are stuck in their own prisons. Adán is living large behind the bars of a Mexican prison that he turns into his personal headquarters, and Art is living in seclusion at a border monastery. But when Adán strolls out of prison set on making himself El Patrón again, Art knows that he's the only one capable of bringing him down. But while both men are set on destroying one another, neither of them is prepared to face the cruel and sadistic ways that the drug war has evolved.

When the devil comes, he comes on angel's wings.

This sequel is basically the Godfather Part II or Empire Strikes Back of Winslow's Cartel trilogy. It's bigger, badder, darker, and more violent. I loved picking up again with these two main characters and found it fascinating to see them struggle with this ferociously brutal evolution of the drug war and the fact that they both had a hand in creating it. But the stand-out in this book is the vast supporting cast of scene-stealing characters, such as my favorite, the rational and pragmatic rising drug lord "Crazy" Eddie Ruiz, the tragic child killer Chuy (who's introductory chapter is one of the book's best), or the Juárez reporter Pablo Mora. Each of the rich supporting characters gives us a lens from which to view a particular aspect of this complicated war that affects so many parts of Mexican life and really provides the heart of the story. But the story's backbone is the Keller/Barrera feud, and here, as they each separately try to get a handle on the worsening violence, they still circle one another as their mutual hatred grows, and you get the sense that it can only possibly end with one of them dead.

At the end of the day or the end of the world, there are no separate souls. We will go to heaven or we will go to hell, but we will go together.

The graphic violence is ratcheted up here, especially with Winslow's inclusion of the rise of the real-life Los Zetas organization, responsible for much of the brutal terror in the past decade in Mexico. It's a bit hard to read at times, and unbelievable, but some quick internet research or at least a passing interest in Mexican news will let you know the harsh truth that Winslow's depictions are not only plausible but actually based on real events. Just google Los Zetas, El Chapo, and recently, Javier Valdez. The timeliness and the authenticity makes the whole thing pretty gripping, and the action culminates in a masterful, climactic, jungle set-piece that kept my eyes glued to the page for the last 50 pages of the book.

If you like sweeping crime epics, these books are must-reads! And the best news of all is that Winslow is finishing the work on the last Cartel book, and I'm definitely pumped to read it!

They say that love conquers all. They're wrong, Keller thinks. Hate conquers all. It even conquers hate.

...more

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Mar 20, 2017 Snotchocheez rated it it was amazing

5 stars

There are a number of ways to receive Don Winslow's massive fictional undertaking The Cartel (a novel even more massive when you consider it's a 600+ page, very-much stand-alone sequel focused on the drug trade in Mexico):

We could blithely ignore what's gone on in the last few decades, and pretend the Grand Guignol of Mexican horrors hasn't directly affected us and willfully whitewash it from our collective cognizance. We could gobble it up and point to it as a proof-positive exemplar of 5 stars

There are a number of ways to receive Don Winslow's massive fictional undertaking The Cartel (a novel even more massive when you consider it's a 600+ page, very-much stand-alone sequel focused on the drug trade in Mexico):

We could blithely ignore what's gone on in the last few decades, and pretend the Grand Guignol of Mexican horrors hasn't directly affected us and willfully whitewash it from our collective cognizance. We could gobble it up and point to it as a proof-positive exemplar of the rationale behind building a 2,000 mile-long, umpteen feet-high wall separating the US from the evils the bad guys perpetrate (which most assuredly would be missing Winslow's point of this endeavor). Or, we can embrace Winslow's meticulously researched, utterly harrowing saga about how futile the "War on Drugs" is, and how it has served primarily to perpetuate the Cartel wars, rather than fix a damn thing.

While this is a novel, Winslow has culled the efforts of dozens of journalists (many of whom lost their lives, and aptly eulogized in a Dedication section at the beginning) that have devoted their efforts to make sense of the senselessness. Somehow Winslow is able to weave their reporting of hundreds of truly sickening events into his own narrative, in a way that both accentuates the gravity of their profession (of bringing the world the grisly truth) and lays the groundwork for this riveting novel.

I haven't read the prequel The Power of the Dog but I don't at all feel like I needed to read it before appreciating The Cartel, though it might've given me a little more insight toward the motivations behind the main character, Art Keller, if I had. With his nearly three decades of service (first with the CIA, then the Drug Enforcement Agency) he's seen so much awfulness first-hand (thanks to his pocho, or half-bred ethnicity thrusting him headlong into covert operations infiltrating Mexico's drug cartels) that he's become jaded as to his department's efficacy in the War on Drugs. Only some deep-seated personal animosity toward drug kingpin Adán Barrera (which I think was explained in greater detail in the prequel, but Winslow does a fine job catching readers up) motivates Keller (along with a kick in the ass from the DEA) to abandon his monastic retirement as beekeeper in New Mexico and resume his pursuit of Barrera (only to realize just how hopelessly Byzantine the drug trade has gotten circa 2004, with so many players, so many cartels, so many unstable allegiances, and so many hellish bloodbaths of violence that never seem to end).

But The Cartel is not really Art Keller's story (or, really, Don Winslow's, though he's done an incredible job here). It's the entire package of (fictionally, but still) bringing to light the drug trade in a factual manner that seems to transcend other efforts like the motion picture "Sicario" and Netflix's "Narcos" series (which I've only seen bits and pieces of, and hadn't really wanted to, thanks in no small part to a former co-worker acquainting me with the gruesome "El Blog del Narco" website and not wanting to see a Hollywood-ized treatment of same). I will say, though, that Winslow's literary treatment of a very real (and ongoing) problem should not be ignored. It's necessarily brutal and uncompromising, and pulls no punches. I highly recommend it for anyone who can stomach the brutality; particularly to those who believe "Wars on Drugs" are winnable. ...more

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Jun 15, 2017 Dave rated it it was amazing

Shelves: don-winslow

This is a broad, sweeping magnum opus of a novel that has historic breadth and scope and chronicles the modern history of Mexico and the Cartel wars that have absolutely decimated that country. This work, at well over six hundred pages, doesn’t feel long. Rather, it feels overwhelming. This continues the story about the Drug Lord (Adan Barrera) and the Border Lord (Art Keller) that Winslow began in 2005’s Power of the Dog. Winslow could easily have parceled out the 1200 pages that make up these This is a broad, sweeping magnum opus of a novel that has historic breadth and scope and chronicles the modern history of Mexico and the Cartel wars that have absolutely decimated that country. This work, at well over six hundred pages, doesn’t feel long. Rather, it feels overwhelming. This continues the story about the Drug Lord (Adan Barrera) and the Border Lord (Art Keller) that Winslow began in 2005’s Power of the Dog. Winslow could easily have parceled out the 1200 pages that make up these two novels into half a dozen novels. There is not one page extra here. I wouldn’t cut anything out of these books.

This is the story of Art Keller, who, as a DEA agent in Mexico, saw his partner tortured and brutalized and vowed revenge on the cartels. It is the story of his counterpart on the chessboard, Adan Barrera, who seems almost invincible, and who, even, in prison, controlled what seemed like half the Mexican government. It is the story of a chess match played out between these two men, where every move by the DEA and the honest federales only seems to play into Barrera’s hands. Knock out the drug cartels in one area and Barrera consolidates his power. Knock them out elsewhere and local government topples.

It is also the story of how an impoverished underclass in Mexico had nowhere to turn when even the highest levels of the government were on the take, when the cartels owned the prison wardens, the army, the local police forces. It is the story of kids growing up in the slums of Mexican cities and barrios of American border towns who had nothing became narco-terrorists and how the corruption of the local police and federales took over whole swaths of the country and, as one army commander explained, it was not a choice between being on the take or not, it was choice for them as to which side to ally with because they either picked a side or die.

Based in part on real historical events, the book tells the story of the clashes between the different cartels, each wanting to control the plazas, or the border accesses to the U.S.A. It is the story of how the battle between these cartels became more and more violent until the savagery and death that ensued crossed beyond every line of decency. Wholesale massacres became commonplace. Torture became a normal way of life. There were areas like Juarez where any police officer who did not support one cartel or the other was literally torn apart. Heads were hacked off and whole dance clubs set on fire. In the Juarez valley, journalists were killed and ordered to report only what the cartels wanted. Whole villages were wiped out and the entire city devastated as if a full-out war had taken place.

Another part of the story is how ultimately ineffective every attempt to contain the violence was. How could a hunt for the drug lords be carried out when corrupt officials were bagging half a million dollars a month? And, there was so much money involved that every time someone was taken into prison or killed, someone else took his place, more brutal, more savage, than the previous regimes. And, the story tells how Washington failed to understand how much of a war this really was and required its agents to fight this war with one hand tied behind their backs. And, how the drug kingpins used American policy to their advantage to stay in power and to wipe out their competition.
This is a story that needed to be told. It is so close to home, but few in America talk about what has happened just south of our border and how quick and ruthless the descent into savagery became. ...more

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Oct 23, 2017 Edward Lorn rated it really liked it

Not as amazing as THE POWER OF THE DOG but still a good read. I missed Callan. A lot.

A solid four stars. I do wonder what the hell the third book is gonna be about, though.

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Jun 24, 2015 Brandon rated it it was amazing

Recommended to Brandon by: Kemper

Shelves: fiction, favorites, 2015

Picking up after the events of The Power of the Dog, Adan Barrera is sitting pretty in a Mexican jail. With corruption at its highest, Adan’s cell looks more like a luxury condo as he orchestrates the actions of his cartel outside the prison walls, waiting for the right time to escape.

Art Keller is living a modest life off the grid. After Barrera's escape, Keller is brought back into the fold, charged with tracking down and capturing Adan. And so, it begins again. Keller vs. Barrera. Round Two.

W Picking up after the events of The Power of the Dog, Adan Barrera is sitting pretty in a Mexican jail. With corruption at its highest, Adan’s cell looks more like a luxury condo as he orchestrates the actions of his cartel outside the prison walls, waiting for the right time to escape.

Art Keller is living a modest life off the grid. After Barrera's escape, Keller is brought back into the fold, charged with tracking down and capturing Adan. And so, it begins again. Keller vs. Barrera. Round Two.

When I finished Don Winslow’s epic crime novel The Power of The Dog at the end of August, I was overwhelmed. Overwhelmed by the constant, escalating violence that bloodied the pages. I knew a sequel had been written and as much as I wanted to dive right in, I knew I needed a break. There’s only so much unmitigated carnage this reader could take.

After four months, I allowed myself to re-enter Art Keller and Adan Barrera’s blood feud in Winslow’s follow-up, The Cartel. Although Winslow covers a much shorter timeline (ten years as opposed to the roughly thirty in the original), he crams in just as much stomach-churning brutality as the battle escalates between warring cartels south of the border. And by brutality, I mean a pure balls-to-the-wall blood bath. Seriously, this isn’t a book for someone with a weak stomach. In fact, I would often horrify my girlfriend when I would tell her about the awful torture scenes. I’d give out a few details but I think a certain shock factor would be lost.

The War on Drugs is a vicious one. There isn’t a line that any of the players involved are not willing to cross. Violence begets more violence as each Cartel struggles for drug dominance. There’s so much death and destruction within that I started to grow numb to the monotony of the atrocities (beheadings, limbs torn from torsos, narcos burned alive). However, somehow, there’s always something much worse that Winslow has waiting in the wings to throw at you. With that said, it’s easy to justify Keller’s fascinating progression from determined DEA agent to something much, much worse. Faced with continuous unconscionable actions from the narco cartels, Keller is given little choice when faced with altering his strategy and putting aside his morals to take down Barrera and his rivals.

Despite the ending being wrapped up with a bow, I could easily read several more novels written around the decades-long conflict between Barrera and Keller. The Cartel is a hell of a character study surrounding two men who both live to spite one another. ...more

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Aug 29, 2015 Stephen rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: favourites-fiction

What an epic this is - it's like about 4 different books combined into one as one cartel after another battles against each other. It really is the Mexican drug equivalent of the Godfather - or maybe all 3 Godfather films combined into 2 books.

I've seen reviews saying that is Winslow's best book but I think I'd put it equal top with "The Power of the Dog" - it is really a continuation of that and you need to read that first to get the most out of it. If you've already read and liked "The Power o ...more

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Apr 16, 2015 Linwood Barclay rated it it was amazing

I'm only 60 pages or so in, but it's terrific so far, and has an epic feel to it. Winslow either knows this world very well, or has done some amazing research. ...more

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Jun 30, 2015 Mel rated it it was amazing

For those of us that remembered Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzmán's vanishing act from his first maximum-security prison stint at Puente Grande -- supposedly via a laundry cart in 2001 -- it was deja vu all over again when it was announced on July 12th that "Shorty" had done it again. Unnoticed by guards, Guzmán pried open a 1'6" sq. metal grill in the floor of his shower, went through the floor, down a ladder, along a tunnel...
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...and out the door onto his ride to freedom. So thorough was the rehearsa ...more

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Sep 01, 2019 LenaRibka rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: mafia, general-literary-fiction, war-time, epic-what-ever, drugs

WOW...I know, I should write a proper review, I MUST.

For those who think that the Mexican drug war has calmed down, some facts to reconsider:

I ADMIRE the accurate research and incredible processing of information the author did while working on this powerful series. Even if sometimes my head was on the edge of exploding because of all the names and information to keep, this book was really very hard to put down.
I actually got the audio edition first, but I just couldn't wait for my next audio ...more

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Aug 13, 2015 Nate rated it it was amazing

Shelves: owned, creeps-perverts-psychos-killers, crime-and-spy-shit

One of the easiest five stars I've ever given to a book. Not only is this one of the most epic, sweeping crime novels I've ever read, it's also a brilliant fictionalized history and inarguably a work of social activism. Don Winslow is officially The Shit, more later. ...more

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Jul 24, 2018 Jess Penhallow rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: problem-facing-society, 21st-century, part-of-a-series, based-on-a-real-person, popsugar-2018, villain-or-anti-hero, usa, mexico, guatemala, 2018-chunky-books

This book wasn't quite as good as The Power of the Dog for me. Perhaps it was because the novelty of this authors style has worn off, perhaps the storyline was too complicated, I'm not sure. It just didn't pack the punch that I was expecting.

This book, set around 5 years after the conclusion of the previous book. was some how much narrower in scope than its predecessor (the action was mainly contained to Mexico and a time span of 10 vs 30 years) and much broader at the same time. There were far ...more

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Mar 23, 2016 Carol rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: abandoned

I appreciate that I'm an outlier, given the high volume of 4 and 5 star reviews, but I don't get what everyone sees in The Cartel, other than Winslow's writing style is accessible, e.g., very readable. I stopped reading after 150 or so pages. I have a high tolerance for violence, generally, but not torture and the plot wasn't driving to any particular conflict or resolution; it just went on and on to another day of torture, etc. I could not get into the main character. One day I said, "self, why ...more

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Oct 27, 2016 Cphe rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: series, 2016, war, contemporary, dark-very-dark, thriller, suspense

This story follows on from The Power of the Dog. It's not too often that you come across a second novel in a continuing storyline that is as excellent as the first novel. A story of revenge, power and domination between Art Keller and drug lord Aden Barrera in South America. It's a violent, dark and seedy world that they inhabit. Sometimes difficult to ascertain just who the "good guys" are meant to be. A fitting ending to the struggle between the two characters.

Time and money well spent and de ...more

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Aug 28, 2019 Yigal Zur rated it liked it

well. hard to say. Wislow is good writer and a great researcher. but i do not want to read a documentary. the beginning was great and than a great drop quite boring saga of narcotics. maybe it tried too much to follow reality, but...not great plot, not really interesting characters, the women are just house wives or whores. a lot of violence which just serve to describe sort of reality but where is the thriller? so i got bored after half of it. the only real piece of writing was Art Keller as a ...more

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Oct 10, 2016 Lauren rated it really liked it

Shelves: latin-america, fiction, 2016-read-harder-challenge, 2010s-fiction, mystery-thrillers, best-of-2016

This book is filed under Fiction because it is a fictionalized account, but the events, the descriptions, the locations and even many of the names are very real. The disturbing violence is very real. The situations have precedence, and while I knew this overall, reading Winslow's recent article in Esquire, underscored it even more (See: El Chapo and the Secret History of the Heroin Crisis ).

It's devastating, but it's important. Following the narrow, law enforcement both US and Mexican, and t ...more

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Jul 26, 2015 Patrick O'Neil rated it it was amazing

Fuck yeah, Don Winslow’s The Cartel is here and I read it, and all I can say is “Fuck! Holy Fuck! Fuck Yeah!” Although I’m pissed that I tore through the entire book in less then a week. I was busy, I had shit to do, like work, and eat, and sleep, and it just got in the way of me reading, but I still couldn’t make it last more than five days. Shit, Winslow’s the literary equivalent to Jon Stewart and The Daily Show – because nobody demystifies the Socioeconomic/Political/Narco tangle of Mexico l ...more

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Mar 25, 2019 Bill rated it it was amazing

Book 2 in the Power of the Dog series.

What does The Sound of Music and The Cartel novel have in common?

Nothing.

Except for my bad ass, Killer Keller jam!!

Nacho and Chewy and Zetas and bloodbaths
Cocaine and Keller and Adan Ba-rr-era
De-cap-i-tations and shooting drug kings
These are a few of my favorite things.

When the plaza fights
When the snitch sings
When Narco Polo gets mad
I simply remember my favorite things
And then I don't feeeel sooo bad

The Keller / Barrera saga continues in an appropri ...more

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About Don Winslow

Don Winslow

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Don Winslow is the author of twenty-one acclaimed, award-winning international bestsellers, including the New York Times bestsellers The Force and The Border, the #1 international bestseller The Cartel, The Power of the Dog, Savages, and The Winter of Frankie Machine. Savages was made into a feature film by three-time Oscar-winning writer-director Oliver Stone. The Power of the Dog, The Cartel and ...more

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“When you ask people, “What’s America’s longest war?” they usually answer “Vietnam” or amend that to “Afghanistan,” but it’s neither. America’s longest war is the war on drugs.” — 12 likes

“Maybe money can’t buy happiness, but it can rent it for a long time.” — 8 likes

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