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El cártel (Power of the Dog #2)

Don Winslow,

Efrén del Valle (Translator)

4.3 · Rating details · 16,493 Ratings · 1,650 Reviews

El cártel es una colosal narración que se mueve entre los áridos escenarios mexicanos y los despachos de los poderosos en Washington, y que se extiende hasta ciudades europeas como Berlín y Barcelona. El absorbente trabajode documentación de Winslow (libros, prensa, fotos, vídeos, encuentros personales...) le ocupó cinco años, y marcó su vida personal por las implicaciones ...more

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Hardcover, 694 pages

Published December 1st 2015 by RBA (first published May 22nd 2015)

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Aug 13, 2017 Rick Riordan rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

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 · review of another edition

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

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 b ...more

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Aug 13, 2015 Darwin8u rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

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 · review of another edition

Shelves: audio, america, crime, fiction, historical-novel, horror, journalism, latin-america, literature, one-for-the-ages

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 o ...more

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Jul 26, 2016 Orsodimondo rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: americana, giallo-thriller-poliziesco, noir

QUANDO IL DIAVOLO ARRIVA, SI PRESENTA CON ALI D’ANGELO
È più corrotto il venditore o il compratore, lo spacciatore o il consumatore?
Quanto deve essere corrotta una società perché i suoi cittadini cerchino droghe per sfuggire alla realtà, al prezzo di sangue morte e sofferenza dei loro vicini oltre confine?

description

”Sicario”, di Denis Villeneuve, 2015, un buon film su droga e lotta ai cartelli. Il sequel, “Soldado”, è stato diretto dal regista italiano Stefano Sollima, di prossima distribuzione.

Con la Pri ...more

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Mar 13, 2018 Ana marked it as to-read · review of another edition

Shelves: crime

He became his own blues song, a Tom Waits loser, a Kerouac saint, a Springsteen hero under the lights of the American highway and the neon glow of the American strip. A fugitive, a sharecropper, a hobo, a cowboy who knows that he’s running out of prairie but rides anyway because there’s nothing left but to ride.

The shit hath hitith the fan.

It infuriates him, this killing, this death. Infuriating that this is what we’re known for now, drug cartels and slaughter. This my city of Avenida 16 Septembre, the Victoria Theater, cobblestone streets, the bullring, La Central, La Fogata, more bookstores than El Paso, the university, the ballet, garapiñados, pan dulce, the mission, the plaza, the Kentucky Bar, Fred’s—now it’s known for these idiotic thugs. And my country, Mexico—the land of writers and poets—of Octavio Paz, Juan Rulfo, Carlos Fuentes, Elena Garro, Jorge Volpi, Rosario Castellanos, Luis Urrea, Elmer Mendoza, Alfonso Reyes—the land of painters and sculptors—Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, Gabriel Orozco, Pablo O’Higgins, Juan Soriano, Francisco Goitia—of dancers like Guillermina Bravo, Gloria and Nellie Campobello, Josefina Lavalle, Ana Mérida, and composers—Carlos Chávez, Silvestre Revueltas, Agustín Lara, Blas Galindo—architects—Luis Barragán, Juan O’Gorman, Tatiana Bilbao, Michel Rojkind, Pedro Vásquez—wonderful filmmakers—Fernando de Fuentes, Alejandro Iñárritu, Luis Buñuel, Alfonso Cuarón, Guillermo del Toro—actors like Dolores del Río, “La Doña” María Félix, Pedro Infante, Jorge Negrete, Salma Hayek—now the names are “famous” narcos—no more than sociopathic murderers whose sole contribution to the culture has been the narcocorridas sung by no-talent sycophants. Mexico, the land of pyramids and palaces, deserts and jungles, mountains and beaches, markets and gardens, boulevards and cobblestoned streets, broad plazas and hidden courtyards, is now known as a slaughter ground. And for what? So North Americans can get high. ...more

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Jul 18, 2015 Roxane rated it really liked it · review of another edition

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.

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Dec 17, 2015 Sam Quixote rated it it was ok · review of another edition

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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Jun 29, 2016 Perry rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

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 th

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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Jun 08, 2015 Mark Rubinstein rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

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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Nov 17, 2017 G.H. Eckel rated it really liked it · review of another edition

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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Mar 20, 2017 Snotchocheez rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

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

Shelves: crime-mystery-thriller, globe-trotting, 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 Adán 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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Jun 19, 2018 Vaios Pap rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Το "Καρτέλ" αποτελεί αδιαμφισβήτητα το μεγαλύτερο Επικό Μυθιστόρημα των ναρκωτικών...

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Oct 23, 2017 Edward Lorn rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: hardcover

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 · review of another edition

Recommended to Brandon by: Kemper

Shelves: 2015, favorites, fiction

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

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 · review of another edition

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.

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Jun 30, 2015 Mel rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

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...
description

...and out the door onto his ride to freedom. So thorough was the rehearsal ...more

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

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

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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Aug 16, 2017 João Carlos rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: thriller-policial-suspense, m500pag, thriller-policial-suspense-l2017, l2017

Nas páginas iniciais de ”Cartel” (2015) o escritor norte-americano Don Winslow (n. 1953) refere que: Este livro é dedicado a: Alberto Torres Villegas, (…), David Araujo Arévalo, jornalistas assassinados ou “desaparecidos” no México durante o período de tempo abrangido por este romance. Houve outros.”
Dessa extensa lista constam os nomes de cento e trinta e um jornalistas assassinados ou “desaparecidos” no México entre 2004 e 2012; uma contagem assustadora, mas que apenas é um pequeno número de ví ...more

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Aug 13, 2015 Nate rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

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

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.

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Oct 10, 2016 Lauren rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: central-south-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 the ...more

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Jun 29, 2015 Carlos Gomez rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: ciudad-juarez

This was an okay book and it shed some more light on the cartel situation in Mexico. With full respect to Mr Winslow and his past work (the book "Power of the Dog" was very good), I must say, however, that after reading two other novels on the subject recently, this one seemed flat.

Bolano's "2666" 2666about all the murder/rapes in Ciudad Juarez was very very much a horror story, and then Perez-Geise's "Send More Idiots" Send More Idiotsabout a kidnapping was completely on the other end of the s ...more

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Jul 26, 2015 Patrick O'Neil rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

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

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

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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Sep 09, 2015 Ms.pegasus rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Recommends it for: Anyone with an opinion on drug policy

Recommended to Ms.pegasus by: Joe Cummings of GR

Shelves: fiction, thriller

The dedication belies the standard disclaimer: “This is a work of fiction....” That dedication is a list of over 120 journalists murdered or “disappeared” in Mexico during the time frame of this novel (2004-2012). It ends with the chilling valediction: “There were others.”

THE CARTEL opens in November 2012 with a familiar action sequence. A Blackhawk carrying special forces flies on a clandestine assassination mission on foreign soil. What follows is a flashback of the previous eight years of The dedication belies the standard disclaimer: “This is a work of fiction....” That dedication is a list of over 120 journalists murdered or “disappeared” in Mexico during the time frame of this novel (2004-2012). It ends with the chilling valediction: “There were others.”

THE CARTEL opens in November 2012 with a familiar action sequence. A Blackhawk carrying special forces flies on a clandestine assassination mission on foreign soil. What follows is a flashback of the previous eight years of increasingly horrific violence unfolding over the the novel's 600 pages. The story is told in third person present tense enhancing the feel of immediacy. Winslow takes a static abstraction, the war on drugs, and transforms it into a visceral reality, a literal war among shifting alliances of drug lords and corrupted police and military agencies. The groups metastasize: the Cartel del Golfo, the Sinaloa Cartel, the Zetas, La Familia Michoacana, La Linea, Los Negros, Los Aztecas — readers can be forgiven for being overwhelmed. On the street a new lexicon of atrocities develops.

Like any war, there is a geopolitical canvas. Sinaloa is the home turf of the powerful drug cartel run by Adán Barrera, but Sinaloa lacks a border with its primary market, the United States. The key corridors are Juárez/El Paso; Matamoros/Houston-New Orleans; Nuevo Laredo/Laredo-Dallas; and Tijuana/San Diego. The conflict is inevitable. It's a matter of logistics. Expansion depends on control of these portals.

Winslow peoples this novel with memorable characters made real by their shifting agendas and the brutal logic of impossible choices. Art Keller returns to his position at the DEA in order to kill Barrera who was responsible for his partner's death. His primary problem, however, becomes not getting evicted by either his Mexican colleagues or his U.S. Bosses. Eddie Ruiz is a 26 year old drug dealer who joins Barrera's faction to avenge the torture-murder of his friend and fellow dealer Chacho Garcia. His focus later shifts to the more fundamental problem of staying alive himself. Heriberto Ochoa militarizes the cartel with a disciplined force of bodyguards turned private army. My favorite character is introduced relatively late in the book. Pablo Mora is a Juárez journalist with penetrating acumen. His pronouncements are some of the most powerful statements in the book. He points to the blight of North American capitalism as the catalyst of Mexico's ills. The maquiladoras swept into towns like Nuevo Laredo and Juáez, set up their corporate offices in Monterrey, then abandoned Mexico for even cheaper labor in China. “The first wave created gigantic slums as workers poured in from all over Mexico, but especially the poor rural south. The city couldn't hope to keep up with the population boom, and the colonias had little, if any, infrastructure....And because the maquiladoras' management preferred women workers, it left thousands of men, shamed and bitter, to sit idly in the slums, drinking cheap beer and, increasingly doing drugs. The colonias were bad — when the maquiladores left for even higher profit margins, they got worse.” (p.284) Later he bitterly reflects: “Mexico, the land of pyramids and palaces, deserts and jungles, mountains and beaches, markets and gardens, boulevards and cobblestoned streets, broad plazas and hidden courtyards, is now known as a slaughter ground. And for what? So North Americans can get high.” (p.314) No reader can distance himself from the problem after reading this passionate outpouring.

This is a disturbing book to read. It tracks the dissolution of war into anarchy. It draws obvious parallels with the terrorism in Syria. It focuses on the contrast between the failure of a counterinsurgency (defensive) strategy with the cost of an antiterrorism (offensive) strategy. Winslow has performed a kind of alchemy, distilling his vast research into a compelling thriller that reverberates with reality.

NOTES:
Chapter 8 of Maria Armoudian's KILL THE MESSENGER documents the decades long suppression of a free press in Mexico and closes in the time period covered by Winslow.

The author is interviewed by NPR: http://www.npr.org/2015/07/15/4232030...
...more

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Jan 04, 2017 Nigeyb rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I read 'The Cartel' immediately after it's prequel 'The Power of the Dog'. According to the New York Times 'The Cartel' can be read as a stand alone book but it's best to read the two books in sequence. I agree.

Together, 'The Power of the Dog' and 'The Cartel' span nearly 1,200 pages and 40 years and present a multifaceted view of the War on Drugs. 'The Power of the Dog' covers the first 30 years, during which the war was fought on a much more intimate scale than it was from 2004 to 2014, the pe ...more

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Jul 27, 2015 Malia rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: best-of-2015, mystery-suspense

Wow, what a shocking story. Better review coming, but seriously, read this!

Find more reviews and bookish fun at http://www.princessandpen.com

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Mar 14, 2018 Jack Getze rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

Super book. Like many Americans, I used to talk about Mexico's corruption, how easy it was for drug criminals to move their goods through Mexico. I understood the problem was an American one, too. No demand, no drugs flowing into the US, no violence, no corruption. What I didn't understand until I read this book is how hopeless it is for the Mexican police, local state and federal. There's a fictional federal law enforcement official mentioned who tries to explain to the American protagonist, a ...more

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About Don Winslow

Don Winslow

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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

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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.” — 9 likes

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

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