So disappointed. Slow moving and gory. Haven't found any character I care about yet. I don't expect to complete it and I'm not going to get anything more by this author.

Second in a trilogy. I borrowed the first from another district. Narration was ok, not great. There's some good information in the series on the history of the DEA and War on Drugs. It seems to be well researched in that respect. The character depictions are fairly cardboard. I most liked the journalist's story and his heartache over the decline of Juarez compared to its colorful and rich history.

This is pulp fiction at best. While it traces the actual history of the Mexican civil war over control of the drug trade, and somewhat notes USA complicity; that is, the violence is a consequent of the misguided USA led "war on drugs", the novel wages war on Mexico and Mexicans. Is this depiction typical American racism? Or is it a fair account of the mayhem that has occurred? While the American agent hero, Art Keller is presented as a cold blooded killer, the only survivors of this tale are this agent and an American drug dealer. Won't waste my time reading more of this author's propaganda.

Wow. So much killing! If the very descriptive telling of human slaughter in various forms might bother you, better skip this one. One might think it is all made up but one would be wrong. The author even says that while it is fiction, it is based on many actual events. In fact, I just finished reading a story in the June 2019 issue of Texas monthly that told of a mother trying to find her disappeared daughter that vanished back in 2010 I think in the midst of many of the events told in this book. The missing daughter and mother are both Mexican citizens. She disappeared from the Mexican state of Tamaulipas which borders Texas for about 200 miles. I will read the 3rd of the series but have to take a break I think. Curious to see where it goes as several of the main characters of the first 2 of the series have died.

Reads like both a documentary and a potboiler. The violence, the human cruelty--it would be impossible to measure just how depraved a picture of human nature rises from these pages. Not recommended for the bedside, that's for sure. Winslow's research seems thorough and penetrating. The violence and depravity do not, alas, seem at all inflated or gratuitous. One is convinced that, yes, this is the world human beings have made. And as the author makes clear, it is not the Mexican or Colombian drug lords or their minions alone who are responsible for this hell on earth. They exist because there are markets for their products, and no need guessing where those markets are. It is a gruesome read that demonstrates how vulnerable is the veneer of humanism at various social levels and clarifies, if that needed clarifying, why so many of the poor to the south of our borders risk their lives to escape.

Reader Dannnn got this right. You want beaucoup violence? You got. This reader made it half way, nada mas. Winslow is however, a very clever and good writer, and great dialogue -ist who weaves his stories very well. "The Force" "less" violent and better character development.

This will be my last read by Winslow. It is compared to the Godfather but it doesn't compare. It is somewhat like the movie scarface, but doesn't get there either. Way to long. It reads more like a detail history but is fiction trying to copy history. Develops characters to just have them butchered. I almost just dropped it several times, kept thinking it would get more complex and interesting, but didn't, just more of the same blood and guts. At the end who care what happens to the main character? No one.

I think he wanted to have a novel that was turned into a movie. Why didn't he just write a screen play. I won't see the movie. If I want blood I'll watch the news.

A novel about the brutal Mexican drug wars. Winslow spares no sensibilities in the brutal
descriptions of the violence and treachery. One of the best novels I have read recently.

This is an intricate, devastatingly brutal novelization of the 'War on Drugs' with Art Keller and Adan Barrera representing each side. Spanning 10 years this is a sweeping epic unlike any other I've read.

You owe it to yourself to read this book to try to understand what this endless war on drugs has created. This is a work of fiction but the facts are probably worse. Columbia and Mexico have been effectively destroyed as nations by the drug culture and the developed nations of the world are the consumers. Without the consumer there is are no drug cartels!