(Jaurez, Mexico border with the US)

“Mexico, the land of pyramids and palaces, deserts, 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.” (THE CARTEL, 314)

“Hard to believe that 2010, the annus horribiis of the Mexican drug war, has finally come to an end.

The final tally of drug related deaths in Mexico in 2010 comes to 15,273.

That’s what we count now, Pablo thinks, instead of counting down to midnight.

We count deaths.” (481)

Don Winslow’s second installment of his narco trafficking trilogy, THE CARTEL seems nastier than THE POWER OF THE DOG.  The cast of characters is similar, but new ones are introduced that seem to be derived from the depths of humanity, and in this case the pit that is known for its violent drug culture.  However, Winslow’s opening leads the reader to believe that the story line might go in a different direction as the reader is introduced to a bee keeper tending his bees in a monastery and during his free time he is at prayer.  One should not be fooled as the bee keeper is Art Keller, the hero of THE POWER OF THE DOG, a former CIA operative and DEA agent who has been fighting narco traffickers for over thirty years.  Once Keller is reintroduced so is Adan Barrera, narco kingpin and the bane of Keller’s and the DEA’s existence.  In fact, Winslow points out that Barrera is even rated 67^th most powerful man in the world by Forbes  magazine. The latest version of Winslow’s trilogy has all the elements of the first, but it might be my imagination, but it feels more violent and a steeper climb into the underworld of drugs that seem to seep into every crevice of Mexican society, government, and justice.  In addition, it is also a tale of two major business organizations that fight to the death for market share – it is eerie how this story unravels.

The hatred between Keller and Barrera is heightened as Keller fakes the funeral of Barrera’s daughter to lure him into a trap that results in his arrest and imprisonment.  THE CARTEL is the perfect sequel as Barrera puts out a $2 million contract on Keller who is forced to live like a fugitive in Mexico and America.  From inside Puente Grande Prison, supposedly Mexico’s harshest maximum facility, Barrera is treated as a “king” and begins to rebuild his drug empire.  Business is booming, which fosters envy from all those narco kingpin wan bees who believed he was out of the picture – the result is civil war, revenge, violence, torture, all emanating from within the narco world, but also outside as many innocent people are killed.  The civil war becomes extremely convoluted as the cartels keep switching sides, making it difficult to follow who is killing who, and for what reason.

(Mexico border at El Paso, TX)

While inside prison Barrera meets Magna Beltran, who becomes his mistress.  Beltran is just one example of the new characters that Winslow creates to carry his new novel.  She was arrested for drug running when she meets Barrera and he courts her as if they were on the outside.  She is an ambitious woman who realizes once her looks are gone, she will be discarded.  She worms her way into Barrera’s good graces and develops a drug business of her own and becomes a major narco player.  Other important characters include Osiel Contreras who heads the Gulf Cartel and the Zeta army made up of former special forces soldiers, deserters,  and police that is trained and led by a former soldier, Heriberto Ochoa.  Ochoa oversees the Zetas as they try and infringe upon other cartel territories.  Eddie Ruiz, a former high school football star who, as with most characters in the book becomes involved in the drug trade as he builds himself a small empire but is forced to join Barrera for protection from Contreras’ Zeta army.  It appears that each narco head has his own private army with the latest weaponry to go after each other and protect their investments.  Winslow is very astute or sarcastic as he points out that in the old days, the narco leaders would be at the forefront of the fighting, but now they send their own private forces to do their dirty work.  The violence becomes so bad that as cartel armies go against each other one gets the feeling they are in Iraq,  Syria, or Afghanistan.  In fact, the drug wars became terror wars with indiscriminate killing to intimidate and sow fear, rather than conquer targets.

Winslow uses Barrera’s desire to expand into the Juarez cartel as a vehicle to explore the socio-economic problems of Juarez, a city that lies across the river from El Paso as well as the inability of the authorities to provide protection for its citizenry.  Using Pablo Mora, a reporter for El Periodico as a tool to explain how the police have a difficult time solving crimes, the reporter explains why the structure of policing is inefficient, and why duties are distributed in such a manner that they overlap creating redundancy and incompetence.  With combinations of city police, state prosecutors and police, federal prosecutors and police, a grab bag of intelligence agencies from the city, state, and national governments, and of course the influence of the cartels which have their own police forces made up of current and retired officers it is amazing that the police can accomplish anything for the public good.  Mora’s work provides insights into cartel policies and their impact on Mexican and American society.  Mora is an important character as Winslow tries to integrate somewhat of a “normal” individual into the story, but he too suffers as his four-year-old son moves to Mexico City due to divorce.

(supposed caravans unwelcome at US border)

Another exceptional character is Marisol  Cisneros, a physician who Keller falls in love with.  She is stubborn to the point that she puts her safety in question.  Refusing to back down to the violence wrought by the cartels in Valverde, her home village where she runs a medical clinic for the poor, her story provides further evidence for the ruthless behavior employed by the sociopaths that head the cartels.

(The Author)

Winslow’s ability to invent unusual characters that capture the reader’s attention is limitless.  Two Mexican government officials, Louis Aguilar and Gerardo Veras begin working with Keller, but their loyalties are questioned making it hard to determine what their agendas are, and which one can be trusted.  Keller’s relationship with DEA head Tim Taylor reemerges and the results are interesting to say the least. Eddie Ruiz acquires the nickname of “Crazy Eddie,” or “Narc o Polo” and he eventually allies with Jesus “Chuy” Barajos, an eleven-year-old boy from the barrio who is trained as an elite soldier by the Zetas.  After a series of events he switches sides, joins Ruiz, and acquires the nickname “Jesus the Kid.”  It seems that Chuy found religion when he was picked up by a religious cult called La Familia Michoacana, led by a cult figure, named Nazario. The cult engages in good works for Jesus providing food, medical care, and housing throughout the barrios of Mexico and American border regions.  The problem of course is how this is funded, and you can guess it was paid for by the “meth trade,” whereby the family had built its own drug empire which of course had intruded on another cartel’s area of control.  Another family/cartel is headed by Diego Tapia, who along with his two brothers are allied with Barrera, until they aren’t.  If there is a common theme to many of the characters it is their fear of going to sleep, which brings them dreams about all the murders they have witnessed, covered, implicated, or for a few committed.  For Pablo it is “the dead, the dying, the grieving.  The dismembered, the decapitated, the flayed.” (559)

There are other characters and story lines that emerge for the reader to discover, but they all revolve around the drug trade, the domination of supply and distribution, particularly the burgeoning heroine epidemic in the United States, corruption of the Mexican government and law enforcement, and the violence as the cartels go to war with each other, with certain personalities continuing their vendettas.

At times Winslow’s sense of humor emerges as he points out that NAFTA, does not stand for the North American Free Trade Agreement, but “the North American Free Drug Trade Agreement.”  THE CARTEL  is a bit longer that THE POWER OF THE DOG, but it packs an even greater punch and will keep the reader riveted as it expands its exploration of the drug trade from Central and South America feeding the habits of American citizens.  Winslow is a master of numerous story lines that eventually converge.  The reader needs to be on their toes not to miss a step as the author unveils his plot very carefully, i.e.; Keller’s off book investigation of the Mexican justice system after he helped ignite the cartel civil war.  The book is an eye opener and difficult to put down.  After I finished reading, I can only imagine what new twists and turns Winslow will introduce in the third installment of his trilogy due out this February, entitled, THE BORDER.

(Border checkpoint between Tijuana and the United States)

“A war on terrorism, a war on communism, a war on drugs.

There’s always a war on something.”  That is the human condition I am                                  afraid……”

Art Keller, San Diego, 1999

Don Winslow begins THE POWER OF THE DOG with the murder of nineteen people by Mexican narco-traffickers in the nation’s capital in 1997.  This is a signal to the reader that the tale that is about to unravel will not be for the squeamish, but also it provides a hint of what is to come.  In addition, it reflects how the drug trade operates, and it feels extremely contemporary.  If you choose to continue, Winslow will take you on an unbelievable thirty ride inside American law enforcement and narco traffickers as the drug trade in South and Central America is presented in a brutal fashion.

Winslow’s protagonist, Art Keller, is a DEA agent who had moved over to the agency from the CIA with a background in the Phoenix (assassination) Program during the Vietnam War. Keller’s presence in the DEA is controversial as the agency dislikes what they perceive to be “CIA Cowboys,” that results in a consistent theme of shutting Keller out from DEA policies.  Keller witnesses the murders of the men, women, and children, and blames himself for what has occurred because he had recruited the perpetrators of the murders, Adan Barrera.

Winslow will turn the clock back to 1975 to provide context and a path to understanding for the reader by introducing Operation Condor, a plan to take down Don Pedro Aviles and his narco empire.  The novel focuses on the Sinaloa cartel at the outset and a joint US-Mexican operation to destroy the poppy fields and Aviles’ operation to take down the Mexican drug trade.

Keller’s background from growing up in the San Diego barrio without a father, his time in the CIA, and the attitude of DEA hire ups toward him help form his worldview.  For Keller, his goals are clear and the government bureaucracies that seems to get in the way are just obstacles to overcome.  When the DEA shuns him, he strikes up a relationship with the Barrera family; first with Adan and his brother Raul, then with their uncle, Miguel Angel Barrera (known as Tio) of the Sinaloa State Police.  These relationships form the core of Winslow’s narrative as Keller feels that Tio who he worked with to stop the drug trade used him as a means of taking out the Aviles network and create his own under the guise of the federacion.  Keller works diligently to rectify that wrong and assuage his guilt because of the murders.  However, since this is about Mexico and the narco trade they are not the only murders, and not the only examples of Keller’s revenge, a major theme of the novel.  Other themes include the narco civil wars between competing cartel factions, the corruption of the Mexican government, and the American obsession with anti-communism.

From the outset Winslow fosters a narrative of distrust – who are the good guys?  Winslow also manufactures a realism as he describes the drug trade that seems right from the front pages of current newspapers.  His story line development is taught as he introduces people who seem very believable in the roles they are assigned.  Characters like Tim Taylor, Keller’s DEA boss; Bishop Jan Parada, whose life’s work is to help the poor and believes in liberation theology; the Barreras; the Piccone Brothers, who add an Italian mob element to the story; John Hobbs, CIA Station Chief for Central America who oversaw US pseudo enforcement and cooperation with the Cartels; Salvatore Scachi, a Special Forces Colonel, CIA asset, made Mafia wise guy, and a participant in the Phoenix program in Vietnam;  Fabian Martinez, a Tijuana narco wanna be;  Obop and Sean Callan who emerge as focal characters in the Irish mob in New York’s Hell’s Kitchen and assassination experts; and Nora Hayden, sometime prostitute, sometime mistress, sometime US intelligence source who are all fascinating keys in what Winslow is trying to convey.  With a myriad of characters, the reader needs to pay close attention, particularly the juxtaposition of Keller and Anan Barreras as they begin as “friends,” but the relationship rests on each using the other to achieve their agendas.

Winslow has excellent command of history and he integrates important events to enhance his story.  The discussion of the September 19, 1985 Mexican earthquake (8.0 on the Richter scale) that resulted in over 5000 deaths reflected the weakness of the Mexican government and emphasizes that apart from the US, the main source of aid would come from the Vatican and Narco bosses.  The insights fostered by Winslow’s discussion of the earthquake are important as it took pressure off the Cartel as Mexico City had to rebuild.  Another important historical theme is the role of communism and American foreign policy to Central America.  The Reagan administration was obsessed with the rise of the Sandinistas in Nicaragua fearing the spread of its socialist ideology throughout the region.  Reagan did not want to see another Cuban model  and supported the Contra movement to defeat the Sandinista’s.  The funding of the Contras would lead to the Iran-Contra affair later, but in 1985 the model was clear, the Mexican Trampoline where coke was flown up from Columbia to El Salvador, then transported to Mexico where it was shipped to Mafia bosses in the United States for distribution.  The Mafia paid for the drugs with weapons and military hardware for the Contras with the full knowledge of the CIA.  It is interesting that Barrera was funding Contra training camps in El Salvador for the CIA!

The pseudo alliance between the CIA and the cartels to block leftist politicians and union leaders from achieving power is historically accurate.  Winslow points to programs like “Red Mist,” that applied assassination as a means of getting rid of any opposition, ostensibly creating a Phoenix program for South and Central America, and Operation Cerberus, a conspiracy to equip, fund, and train the Contras through the sale of cocaine.  Coordination involved hundreds of right-wing militias and their drug lord sponsors, a thousand army officers, a few hundred thousand troops, dozens of separate intelligence agencies, police forces, and the church.  American funding allowed the militias to carry out their mission that would lead to Death Squads in El Salvador and Guatemala resulting in the death of over 200,000 people. Later,  A disgusted President Bush finally withdrew US support for a program he was deeply involved with as Vice-President.  It is also interesting how Winslow blends the approval of NAFTA by the US congress to help bring Mexico out of poverty, so the drug trade needed to be kept off the front pages.

(cartel drug deal gone bad in Mexico)

Winslow also takes the reader inside the cartels as they compete for “market share,” sources for product, and distribution networks.  The narco kingpins try and make it sound like a normal capitalist enterprise, however the corruption, violence, intimidation, extortion, murder is all part of their business model.  They own segments of the police, the justice system, cooperation of elements in the Catholic Church, and government powerbrokers as they bribe and coerce all components of society to achieve their ends.  Throughout the book there are numerous plot shifts and alliances that seem to change at the whim of the characters.  Each change is unpredictable and keeps the reader paying rapt attention.  The bottom line is that these interactions are despicable and produce feelings of disgust with American intelligence operatives and the deals they make – though in their own minds their rationalizations are completely justified.

Winslow has written a scary novel with a very believable scenario.  It is thoughtful, well written, and eye opening for those who are unaware of the depth of the drug trade.  For those who have become hooked on the subject matter, Winslow has written a sequel, THE CARTEL, with a third volume due out in February 2019, called THE FORCE.

(border checkpoint between Tijuana and the United States)