ONE OF THE MOST ACCLAIMED BOOKS OF THE YEARContains an excerpt from Don Winslow’s explosive new novel, City on Fire!NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY Washington Post • NPR • Financial Times • The Guardian • Booklist • New Statesman • Daily Telegraph • Irish Times • Dallas Morning News • Sunday Times • New York Post“A big, sprawling, ultimately stunning crime tableau.” – Janet Maslin, New York Times Post
“A big, sprawling, ultimately stunning crime tableau.” – Janet Maslin, New York Times
“You can’t ask for more emotionally moving entertainment.” – Stephen King
“One of the best thriller writers on the planet.” – Esquire
The explosive, highly anticipated conclusion to the epic Cartel trilogy from the New York Times bestselling author of The Force
What do you do when there are no borders? When the lines you thought existed simply vanish? How do you plant your feet to make a stand when you no longer know what side you’re on?
The war has come home.
For over forty years, Art Keller has been on the front lines of America’s longest conflict: The War on Drugs. His obsession to defeat the world’s most powerful, wealthy, and lethal kingpin?the godfather of the Sinaloa Cartel, Adán Barrera?has left him bloody and scarred, cost him the people he loves, even taken a piece of his soul.
Now Keller is elevated to the highest ranks of the DEA, only to find that in destroying one monster he has created thirty more that are wreaking even more chaos and suffering in his beloved Mexico. But not just there.
Barrera’s final legacy is the heroin epidemic scourging America. Throwing himself into the gap to stem the deadly flow, Keller finds himself surrounded by enemies?men who want to kill him, politicians who want to destroy him, and worse, the unimaginable?an incoming administration that’s in bed with the very drug traffickers that Keller is trying to bring down.
Art Keller is at war with not only the cartels, but with his own government. And the long fight has taught him more than he ever imagined. Now, he learns the final lesson?there are no borders.
In a story that moves from deserts of Mexico to Wall Street, from the slums of Guatemala to the marbled corridors of Washington, D.C., Winslow follows a new generation of narcos, the cops who fight them, street traffickers, addicts, politicians, money-launderers, real-estate moguls, and mere children fleeing the violence for the chance of a life in a new country.
A shattering tale of vengeance, violence, corruption and justice, this last novel in Don Winslow’s magnificent, award-winning, internationally bestselling trilogy is packed with unforgettable, drawn-from-the-headlines scenes. Shocking in its brutality, raw in its humanity, The Border is an unflinching portrait of modern America, a story of—and for—our time.
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I’m totally swept up. You can’t ask for more emotionally moving entertainment… Everyone in America—left, right, and center—should read this book. It’s social fiction to rival Tom Wolfe and John Steinbeck. Focused, angry, suspenseful, occasionally hilarious, always hugely entertaining… A harsh, important book.
The Border is the third book in Don Winslow’s Power of the Dog series. Art Keller is now in the upper ranks of the DEA. The story reveals corruption on all political levels, 40 years of failed policy, the disaster on our border, and the heroin epidemic. It may be billed as fiction but it’s real life and a chilling read.
Thanks to political connections made during the Guatemala raid at the climax of The Cartel, Art Keller is named head of the Drug Enforcement Agency to combat America’s burgeoning heroin epidemic. His efforts at combating the flow of opioids opens an investigation that takes Keller, his agents, and a host of author Don Winslow’s secondary and tertiary characters from the poppy fields of Mexico to the financial barons of Wall Street, and into the heart of the darkest corridors of power in Washington, D.C. As the 2016 presidential election campaign heats up, Keller soon learns that despite now being nearly two thousand miles away from Mexico, the border — and the influence of notorious drug cartels — is closer than ever.
As with the prior two novels, this final book in Winslow’s Power of the Dog series is a labyrinthine crime epic, one that approaches its subject in a mosaic style, offering a large number of subplots, points of view, and characters that weave in and out of the narrative and intersect in surprising ways. The Border closes out Winslow’s examination of the last forty years of America’s War on Drugs, fictionalizing plenty of dramatic real-world occurrences and high profile figures as he tackles a broad view of the illegal drug trade and its various players. Winslow takes us from Keller’s office as director of the DEA to the junkies on the street, exploring the connections between federal and local police forces as an undercover investigation is launched to connect local drug traffickers to their Mexican cartel suppliers, and the money laundering that occurs on either end. With an investigation focused on following the money, Keller eventually finds himself mired in an unholy level of corruption that could not only destroy him, but the country as well.
Casting a large shadow over Keller’s investigation is in-coming president, John Dennison. Dennison is transparently the Donald Trump figure of The Border, to the point that Winslow had to do very little creative juggling to develop this character and simply transcribed Trump speeches and tweets. In short, then, Dennison is every bit the amoral, loudmouthed, obstructive, and corruptive influence as his real-life counterpart, only with Mexican drug cartels swapped out with the Russians as the primary colluding figures. As Keller’s investigation heats up, Dennison takes to Twitter to call him weak and decry the DEA’s work as a witch hunt, in between demands to Build The Wall.
The November 2016 election results propels Keller to stand against not just the Mexican cartels but against his country as well, turning him into a patriotic pariah. Winslow absolutely nails the feelings of depression and despair that washed over the majority of American voters in immediate wake of Trump’s election as we helplessly watched as our country was handed over to a repugnant, immoral racist, sexist, bigot and con artist who rode into the highest office in our land on a wave of hatred and fascist rhetoric. Keller wakes up November 9, 2016 to the disheartening realization that his country is far different than the one he thought he knew.
Winslow is on record as having thought he was finished with his story on the War on Drugs with The Cartel, and in so many ways that book felt like a definite conclusion. Of course, the story dictated otherwise, and the result is The Border, the definitive conclusion to a story that began with The Power of the Dog in 2005. Winslow has been writing about the American War on Drug and all the various facets such an operation has entailed for more than decade, fictionalizing so much of reality, the good, the bad, and the ugly of it all. The resulting books are absolute must-reads, and Winslow has created a powerful and necessary trilogy about one of the US’s longest, bloodiest, and most morally compromised wars in its relatively short history as a nation. The Border is an epic of its time, and it just so happens that its time is so heavily influenced by the orange, idiotic, 800-pound tweeting gorilla in the room, Donald Trump. It’s impossible to avoid a figure like Trump in a contemporary American crime novel about US drug policy, drug trafficking, and the porous nature of the Mexican border and US ports, particularly a figure that routinely shoots his mouth off about building a wall, dehumanizing Mexican immigrants, and belittling Mexicans as nothing more than rapists and murderers. Winslow, and Art Keller, are left with little choice but to face all this head-on.
It would be unfair to characterize Winslow’s depiction of Keller’s investigation as little more than wish-fulfillment, because let’s face it — if it were actually wish-fulfillment, the manchild Trump/Dennison would have never been made president in the first place. Instead, any wish-fulfillment is left to the readers hoping for a lone American patriot to win against a corrupt government and a twisted, morally bankrupt leader. Those who have read Winslow’s prior two Power of the Dog novels know full well that any such victories are not easily won. They come at a cost, and never without deeply personal loss. And Winslow, master that he is, makes you feel each and every inch of this grueling, challenging, hard-fought war.
THE BORDER is the last book in the POWER OF THE DOG trilogy. All I can say is WOW.
It was everything I hoped for and more. Brutal criminals, sometimes even more brutal law enforcement, international drug wars, politics, and the absolutely fabulous Ray Porter relating it all in that powerful voice of his.
At this point I feel like Don Winslow and Ray Porter are a part of my life. I’ve spent dozens of hours with them both and to be honest? I’m going to miss them.
Does Art Keller finally get somewhere in the drug war he’s fought his entire life? Will he get to settle down and live a quiet life with Marisol? What about Eddie Ruiz? Callen and Nora? Hell, will any of them even survive? I recommend you read this ASAP so you can find out!
Winslow delivered the goods here and Ray Porter performed the hell out of it.
My highest recommendation!
This is an excellent novel about the drug war in the US and Mexico. Rich, fleshed out characters, a complex, suspenseful plot about corruption and justice. It was named best book of the year by a number of outlets.
Loved it! And Don Winslow
Really enjoy Winslow’s books. I only wish that he didn’t insert his very strong political biases into the story. That being said, I would recommend this book to any fan of Don Winslow.
This story-line is intriguing and does not have any degree of predictability. WARNING, some of the descriptions of cartel violence are VERY graphically disturbing. But the many plots coming together are really fascinating.
Don Winslow is the best every book is great !
The last book in a marvelous trilogy.
Amazing end to an amazing saga of courage and cowardice, nobility and evil.
Winslow’s Cartel trilogy has grown. The first book was a decent thriller, then The Cartel was outstanding. The Border is an epic novel of the Americas. Brutal and compassionate, telling the stories of those at the very top and those at the bottom, like the boy growing up on the Guatemala City rubbish dump. It’s the drug business, and life is cheap, everywhere on the ladder. Corruption extends from the bottom all the way to the top, penetrating high into politics in the US. It feels utterly real, utterly dirty…and as fine a piece of storytelling as I’ve come across, my book of 2019. People used to talk about The Great American Novel, With Art Keller trying to find some justice in both the US and Mexico, this is probably the great novel of the Americas. It’s that good, it’s breathtaking.
The final volume in an epic trilogy. Powerful stuff.
A great read! Would make a fantastic movie along the lines of Sicario. Great characters and story and wonderfully written.
Build two walls!
The rather lengthy novel will open your eyes to drug cartels, political chicanery, drug war efforts that don’t stop the flow of drugs, (the wall won’t stop the flow), the plight of the people in Central America, the gang wars here and there, and the dangers of undercover operations. It is so current it seems ripped from the headlines: politicians making money off drugs and money laundering, police involved in law enforcement or illegal activities. I really like author Winslow. He is thorough and an excellent writer. You don’t notice the writerly talent. My only negative is that I wish his novels weren’t quite so long. “Sartori” is another excellent novel. Winslow is a linguist, I’m sure. Spanish, Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese, slang, but the foreign language usage doesn’t get the way of understanding. Buy it. Borrow it. Take it out on library loan.
I was actually sad when I finish this book I did not want to do and it was that good
Don Winslow can write. The third in the Border trilogy does not disappoint. Cartels, DEA, and politics. Not for the faint-hearted reader with gruesome torture and death.