The New York Times bestselling second novel in the explosive Power of the Dog series—an action-filled look at the drug trade that takes you deep inside a world riddled with corruption, betrayal, and bloody revenge. Book Two of the Power of the Dog Series It’s 2004. Adán Barrera, kingpin of El Federación, is languishing in a California federal prison. Ex-DEA agent Art Keller passes his days in a … prison. Ex-DEA agent Art Keller passes his days in a monastery, having lost everything to his thirty-year blood feud with the drug lord. Then Barrera escapes. Now, there’s a two-million-dollar bounty on Keller’s head and no one else capable of taking Barrera down. As the carnage of the drug war reaches surreal new heights, the two men are locked in a savage struggle that will stretch from the mountains of Sinaloa to the shores of Veracruz, to the halls of power in Washington, ensnaring countless others in its wake. Internationally bestselling author Don Winslow’s The Cartel is the searing, unfiltered epic of the drug war in the twenty-first century.
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Well written but far to much extremely graphic violence and far to little plot.
Excellent
Although fiction gives an insight to how horrible the drug cartels are and how little human life means to them
Brutally honest companion piece to Winslow’s The Power of the Dog.
Together, the books enhance Winslow’s years of reportage in Mexico and Central America where he sat ringside as petty criminals exploited US policy – maturing into psychopathically depraved megalomaniacs – to create fiefdoms at export points known as Plazas, and feeding the insatiable stateside craving for drugs.
Winslow performs the most interesting and intimate of autopsies upon the War on Drugs and he does it in situ. It’s an astounding, horrifying revelation as we’re privy to the heinous abomination of ‘plata o plomo’ on one side – ‘arms for contras’ on the other.
Brilliant, page-burning. I’d go with The Power of the Dog first.
Don Winslow, the writer, does a fine job with this book. A really good read, although somewhat dark, as you can infer from the title.
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 former soldier and CIA official almost as ruthless as the drug lords. You seem to think we have a choice, he says. But when the drug lord shows you a picture of your children walking out of school, and says, you will call us when the next raid is established, you take the money and follow orders. From the smallest town, where the drug people own the police force, or the Mexican Army whose leaders are also extorted about their children, everyone is affected. Everyone is suspect. Everyone is threatened. This novel, THE CARTEL, will scare the hell out of you. Gruesome in its implications for all of us. Winslow throws many jabs at America and American institutions, some deserved, some not, but the 750-page story is about Mexico and the sad people who live there. There are no happy endings. Still, I could only put it down to sleep.
Sprawling. Epic. Gritty. These are the words that best describe Don Winslow’s novel about the Mexican drug war, The Cartel.
The story begins in a Blackhawk helicopter, filled with elite soldiers, flying over rain forests towards a mysterious target. The helicopter takes fire from below, and spins out of control…
The reader is transported years back in time and treated to one of the best written novels on the Mexican drug trade ever written. This was the first book I’ve ever read by Don Winslow, but it certainly won’t be the last. The Cartel reminded me of The Godfather – and I’ve heard other Winslow novels described similarly. The Real Book Spy gave a great write-up to Winslow’s most recent book, THE FORCE. But it was one of my own readers who suggested The Cartel when I mentioned that I was writing a book that involves the Mexican drug trade. If you like mafia stories, if you like the netflix series Narcos, if you enjoy a gripping suspense novel that educates you as much as it enthralls, you’ve got to read this book.
Winslow’s writing style reminded me a bit of Stephen King and Elmore Leonard. He’s one of those freaks of nature that cuts out all the extraneous fluff and makes you feel like you’re really there. Winslow “just keeps the good stuff” as they say. The quick but vivid descriptions. The sharp dialogue. The insightful truths in the minds of his characters.
The action is intense. Some of it gory. But The Cartel, as far as I can discern, accurately portrays what life was like in Mexico, in the DEA, in that world of the narcos. The killings and tortures. The warring gangs. The sex and violence and money. It describes what life was like for the kings of these organizations, a never-ending life of posturing and backstabbing.
You follow Adan Barrera as he is extradited from a US prison to a Mexican one. Once there, he orchestrates his escape, and re-captures control of the most powerful cartel in Mexico. His character is complex, as is the hero’s. A DEA agent by the name of Art Keller. Their past and future intertwined, both are forced to constantly choose between multiple dark paths. Keller trying to recapture or kill Barrera. Barrera putting a multi-million-dollar contract on the head of Keller.
It is ultimately a story of love and betrayal, of seemingly unstoppable evil infecting the Mexican country in the form of the drug trade. It makes you re-think what you thought you knew about who the good and bad guys really are. Or whether there are even any good guys at all…
Bottom line – The Cartel is a masterpiece.
I read the Power of the dog and then the Cartel. The story and chapters are based on true events. I learned more about the narcotrafficing works and the power struggle within and out.
This was a good read but absolutely brutal.
The plot and characters were delivered in an artistic manner which really made my head spin at times. I had no idea who I was routing for, flipping from one side to another, which made me question myself! There were a huge number of threads within this story, sometimes pushed the boundaries on your memory capacity. I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the war on drugs and has a strong stomach for violence and betrayal.