(Providence, RI)

There is no novelist that can compare with Don Winslow’s novels that deal with the drug cartels and organized crime, their operations, what it was like to be inside these murderous organizations, and what it was like to try and end their reign of drug induced terror.  If you have read Winslow’s cartel trilogy; THE POWER OF THE DOG, THE CARTEL, and THE BORDER then you have experienced the depth of the author’s knowledge of the drug trade in well-written, deeply insightful, and carefully crafted works.  Winslow is the author of twenty-three bestsellers, many of which have been made into films.  His latest is the Danny Ryan trilogy which begins with CITY ON FIRE followed by his latest work, CITY OF DREAMS where we become reacquainted with Mr. Ryan who is now on the run from the FBI, the Mob, and the police as he tries to create a new life for himself in California.  The crime fiction genre has no shortage of memorable mob sagas by such practitioners as Mario Puzo, James Ellroy, and Dennis Lehane.  With its large cast of memorable characters and low-key allusions to classical literature, in CITY OF DREAMS  Winslow provides incontrovertible evidence that he is part of this elite group, and perhaps is the best among them with his wit, erudition, and riveting approach to storytelling.

Winslow begins the novel describing the end of an organized crime war between the Irish and Italian mobs for control of the New England market, circa 1988.  The Murphy’s, which Danny Ryan belonged to, lost the war to the Moretti family, and Ryan and his crew are driving south on I95 trying to escape the feds, the cops, and most of all the Moretti’s.  Peter Moretti had set up the Murphy gang and they fell for what appeared to be an effective drug heist, but it backfired resulting with Ryan and his crew on the run and Moretti trying to recover millions of lost drugs.

The novel’s plot centers on Ryan who, when push came to shove, dumped $2 million worth of heroin  into the ocean and killed a dirty FBI agent named Phil Jardine.  The problem for Ryan is that the FBI’s national sub director for organized crime, Reggie Moneta was Jardine’s lover and she wants revenge against Ryan no matter the cost.  For Ryan, who winds up in San Diego and later Las Vegas life is hard.  Right before he left Providence, RI his wife Terri died of cancer.  Further, his father the old leader of the Murphy gang, suffers from dementia and is institutionalized.  Ryan also has a young son Ian and is broke.

Winslow’s story presents the dysfunctional nature of mob families.  The Moretti’s are a case in point as Peter and Paul Moretti, brothers, do their best to make the other look bad.  As the novel unfolds one gumba is screwing another’s wife, one of the gambas daughters commits suicide, and all are looking for the next drug deal that will set them up for life.  Interestingly, one of the affairs is between Peter Moretti and Cassandra Murphy even as their families are trying to kill each other.

The author’s writing is serious, witty, and extremely entertaining.  His characters’ experiences are fodder for Winslow’s sarcasm and somewhat perverted view of human nature that permeates the novel.  It is clear the FBI and the mob want Ryan dead, but the former head of the CIA and currently a Georgetown University professor, Evan Penner wants him alive, which allows Winslow to introduce a number of characters that help create varied plot twists.  There is Brent Harris, a former student of Penner who is a DEA agent with the Southwest High Intensity Drug Trafficking Task Force. He will track Ryan down in Las Vegas and convince or blackmail him into doing his bidding against the Baja Cartel and its leader Domingo Abbarca.  Other important characters include Madeline McKay, Ryan’s mother who has done very well financially as a courtesan to feds, cabinet members, judges and other officials as a “high class courtesan,”  who has morphed into a “dotting” grandmother.”  Celia Moretti who hates her husband Peter is screwing Vinnie Calfo who will eventually become head of the crime family.  Lastly, Reggie Moneta who is obsessed with killing Ryan even when she is told by higher ups to stand down telling associates she “wants Ryan delivered like KFC. In a bag or in a box.”

Perhaps the most entertaining section of the book is the author’s insight into the Hollywood film industry, particularly comments that show how “the Hollywood film industry and the criminal class intersect.”  It centers on two members of Ryan’s crew, “the Alter boys,” Kevin Coombs and Sean South who weasel and threaten their way onto the set of a film about the New England mob as “consultants.”  The film entitled, “Providence” has a “Danny Ryan type figure” and when the “Alter boys” want a larger stake in the film the producer pushes them away resulting in negative happenings on the set.  Eventually Ryan is contacted to reign in his crew, invests in the film himself, and meets its star Diane Carson, just out of rehab.

The result of all of the machinations Winslow introduces is a continuing drug war involving the FBI carrying out an off-book operation against a Mexican cartel, a continuing war with the remnants of the Murphy and Moretti crime families, Danny Ryan seemingly working with the feds to survive, and a Hollywood film, resulting in a fascinating plot as Ryan falls in love with a Hollywood starlet.  The progression of Ryan’s life involves numerous twists and turns, the result of which makes for a sweeping tale of family, revenge, and survival as he confronts the reality of what he hopes his life will turn out to be.

(Las Vegas, NV)

As Maureen Corrigan writes in her April 27, 2023, review in the Washington Post, ”before journey’s end, Danny will also be hunted down by a Mexican cartel run by a psychopath named Popeye Abbarca, whose men will comb roadside motels and bars, thirsting for Danny’s blood and that of his kin. Though inflected with occasional reflections on the absurdity of the human condition, “City of Dreams” is no picaresque; instead, as his many fans have come to expect from Winslow, this latest novel in a projected trilogy is unrelentingly tough, tense and violent. Distinct from its predecessor, “City on Fire,” in the geographical sweep of its story, “City of Dreams” reads like one long breathless drag race between Danny and his many enemies on the all-American road to Nowhere.”

By the end of the new novel, Danny and the few friends he has left are on the run again, setting the stage for the trilogy’s upcoming conclusion, CITY IN RUINS.

(Providence, RI)