The Cartel (Power of the Dog #2)

by Don Winslow

Marisol is devastated. “They stole the election,” she tells Keller, citing the various allegations of fraud, voter intimidation, miscounts, and no-counts. “They stole it.” The confirmation of the election results is also the confirmation of everything she’s feared about her country, that it’s hopelessly corrupt, that power will always protect power. The rain keeps coming down. Marisol becomes depressed, morose. Keller sees a person he didn’t know was in there—quiet, uncommunicative, remote. Her disappointment turns to bitterness, her bitterness to anger, and with no legitimate outlet to turn it on, she turns it on him. She’s sure “his” government is pleased with the results, maybe even complicit. “His” politics are a little further to the right than hers, aren’t they? He’s a man (Keller pleads guilty), and no man can really be a feminist, can he? Does he have to hang his shirt on the bathroom hook, does he have to read her the headlines from the paper (she can read herself, can’t she?), can a North American man really understand a Mexican woman? “My mother was Mexican,” Keller reminds her.